Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)
I am delighted that you have called me to speak in this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, given that I sent a copy of my contribution away to my local newspaper earlier today saying how magnificent it would be. I was getting a bit concerned that I was not going to be able to make it and that there would be a bit of an error in the local newspaper.
Two issues are covered in the Bill, and I shall deal with them separately, as the Government should have done. The first is the alternative vote, on which my party, in its manifesto, was committed to having a referendum. For that reason alone, I will back a referendum.
However, let me remind hon. Members of the voting systems in Scotland. For the general election, we have first past the post; for the European elections, we have proportional representation; for the Scottish parliamentary elections, we have both first past the post and an element of proportional representation; and for local government elections, we have the single transferrable vote. In my opinion, that is a car crash of electoral systems, which leads to nothing but confusion, particularly for elderly voters in my constituency.
Like many other hon. Members who have contributed to the debate, I have long held the view that first past the post represents the best system for delivering proper representation and proper governance to a country. Most important, as many other hon. Members have said, politicians cannot hide in first-past-the-post systems. Despite my private feelings, I shall vote to give the public the choice, but I will also campaign to retain the first-past-the-post system.
Three issues concern me about the Bill. The first is the Deputy Prime Minister’s position. He has delivered a consistent message about our rotten political system and the new politics that he wishes us to pursue. His attacks have been against both the system and the parliamentarians in it. I disagree with that analysis. The problems that the House has had in the past were created by flawed individuals, not flawed systems.
Secondly, I am deeply concerned about the coalition’s plans for AV in the Bill because, as has been said many times in the debate, neither the Conservatives nor the Liberal Democrats put the case for AV in their manifestos. I am therefore baffled about why it is in the Bill, unless there is a more cynical reason: to place the alternative vote referendum alongside the changes to constituencies to create a smokescreen to cover up the gerrymandering of our constituencies in this Parliament.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
I respect the hon. Gentleman, who is making a powerful speech, but does he not find it perverse and unprecedented in recent parliamentary history that his party not only went to the electorate at the general election in favour of an AV referendum, but legislated for it before the election, and yet will vote against that policy tonight?
Mr McCann
We are happy to resolve that problem. All the Government need to do is decouple the measures. We will vote for the AV referendum separately, and against the constituency measure. It is in the Government’s —the hon. Gentleman’s people’s—hands to resolve the matter. However, I will vote against the Bill.
Liberal Democrat voters will still harbour some disappointment about going into coalition with the Conservatives, but nobody should be under any illusions about the duplicity of Liberal Democrats in the affair. Before the election, we had to listen to the nauseating lectures of the Deputy Prime Minister, who told us that his was the only party that had in no way been tainted by the troubles of the previous Parliament. That was not the case—it is factually incorrect—but we were led to believe that the Deputy Prime Minister would arrive on his white steed and there would no longer be any dirty deeds or skulduggery in politics because the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) would save us all. That stomach-churning hypocrisy pales into insignificance when we consider the Bill.
The Boundary Commission will be given the task of making arithmetical calculations and equalisations, and placing seats of 76,000 first, second, third, fourth and fifth in their deliberations, except in constituencies that have an area that exceeds 12,000 square kilometres, and except for the Shetland islands and the Western Isles. When I saw the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) after the details of the Bill were released, the smile could not have been taken off his face with a blowtorch because he will get that free run at the next general election.
The primary beneficiaries of all the exceptions are the Liberal Democrats. We should remember that the Deputy Prime Minister said in a speech on political reform on 7 April 2010 that only the Liberal Democrats could be trusted on political reform.
Constitution and Home Affairs
Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Mr Straw
The hon. Gentleman will have to allow me to say that I consult my colleagues about the whipping arrangements that would apply. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) is speculating about whether the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) is worried about something. My advice is for him to worry about how he and his party are going to vote and we will worry about how we vote.
Mr Jackson
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I am glad that the sinner is repenting. Does he regret the use of the guillotine on so many important Bills during the last Parliament? In the Housing and Regeneration Bill, for instance, which I was involved in, more than 200 Government clauses were tabled between Second Reading and Report, so Members were not allowed proper analysis and oversight of that important legislation. [Interruption.]
Mr Straw
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) says that there were no guillotines, as they were programme motions—but they come to the same thing.
Let me say to the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) that I regret the use of guillotines full stop, but sometimes they are necessary. However, I sat in the House in opposition for 18 years, and the first Bill I sat on—the Housing Bill, in early 1980, 30 years ago—was the subject of the most ruthless guillotining, and that on a major measure. There are plenty of other measures of profound importance that were also the subject of guillotining.
My view, both in government and in opposition, has been that the House—certainly over the 30 years in which I have been in it—has not got right the way in which it should deal effectively with legislation on the Floor of the House, and I think that there is a better way. We need to provide for more time, but if we do that, the quid pro quo needs to be limits on speeches, so that people can constructively take part. We also need to look at something that I facilitated on at least one occasion, which is ensuring that when the business is subject to programming or guillotining, some Opposition and Back-Bench amendments can also be the subject of votes. I put those proposals before the House for consideration.
I have set out our view on many of the proposals that are, and will be, the subject of a broad consensus. As I have said, on every proposal that the Deputy Prime Minister brings forward, we shall seek constructively to work with the Government to achieve consensus. However, it seems that consensus was the last thing on the mind of the governing parties, when one turns to some of the elements of the coalition agreement. In his first speech as Deputy Prime Minister, outside the House, the right hon. Gentleman told the nation that he proposed to secure the biggest shake-up of our democracy since the Reform Act of 1832. He described the Reform Act of 1832 as a “landmark”, from
“politicians who refused to sit back and do nothing while huge swathes of the population remained helpless against vested interests. Who stood up for the freedom of the many”—
we have heard that phrase before—
“not the privilege of the few.”
Well, not quite, Mr Speaker, for the truth is that even after the passage of the Great Reform Act of 1832, huge swathes of the population—92% of the population—remained without a vote, helpless in the face of vested interests. The Reform Act of 1832 gave the vote, a limited franchise, to the property-owning class, of whom there were remarkably few, and deliberately ensured that nobody else had the vote—no women, no working men; just 16% of men, and no women whatever.
Let me also say to the right hon. Gentleman that had the Great Reform Act been the landmark in democracy that he suggested—I do not know where he got that from; certainly not even from Wikipedia—none of the agitation of the Chartist movement that followed would have been necessary. Those of us who know a little bit of history will remember that it was the wholly dashed expectations of 1832 that fired up the great Chartist movement. However, the comparison with 1832, if not appropriate, is certainly heavy with unintended irony, for, however limited the effect, the first Reform Act at least extended the franchise. The programme to which the right hon. Gentleman has signed up will reduce the franchise, as I will explain. Some reform!