Constitutional Reform (Wales)

Alun Michael Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[David T. C. Davies]

I should perhaps take it as a compliment that the hon. Gentleman asks me that question which probably ought to be asked of the Minister. I am tempted to say that I will check with my officials and write to the hon. Gentleman. In fact, I do not even have a researcher working for me in London, but I am sure that the Minister will reply for me in a few minutes’ time.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman may be aware of the work done by the Committee on Standards in Public Life during my period as a member of that Committee, which highlighted the failure of the Electoral Commission to exercise the powers that it already has to encourage consistency of registration throughout the country. Is not one of the points that we can agree on that the consistency of registration needs to be driven up in advance of the move, which all parties have supported, to individual registration, because the transition from one system to another is a potentially fragile period that could make a bad situation worse?

[David T. C. Davies]

Yes, I think we can all agree on that. I can only say that in evidence the Minister promised that there would be very strong action to rectify the problem. It is probably a failing on my part, but I am not yet absolutely certain that I know what that action will be. I am sure that we will all be enlightened today.

The Boundary Commission said to us that it would look purely at numbers. When it gave evidence, it said that this was a numbers game and nothing else would come into the equation. It said that it would not look at the topography, the geography, the geographical size of a constituency, the local authority boundaries or anything else; it would look simply at the numbers. Since that evidence was given, I have detected a slight change in tone, in that the Boundary Commission is now talking about trying to match up local authority boundaries where it can. But this will be primarily about numbers.

[Alun Michael]

Just to be clear, is the hon. Gentleman now talking about the intentions of the Boundary Commission, as distinct from the standards improvement that I was talking about in relation to the Electoral Commission? I think that the two points are consistent as long as we are—

[David T. C. Davies]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I fully accept the point that he made about the Electoral Commission. I am coming to the end of my allocated time now, but that is what the Boundary Commission has said. Its original evidence worries me. The messages that have been coming out since then reassure me a little, but we will still end up with completely different constituencies and with one in four MPs in Wales disappearing.

We have not stood up for ourselves; we have been afraid to stand up for ourselves. The vast majority of people in this Chamber and in the House of Commons work very hard and do a very good job. To some extent, we have been pushed into accepting the proposals, because we are afraid that we will be seen to be self-serving if we do not accept a large cut in our own numbers. It becomes much harder to justify cutting the number of MPs on a cost basis if at the same time we are going to spend large sums funding the House of Lords, whether they be elected, appointed or a mixture of both.

If the Government support the role of the Back-Bench MP in holding Ministers to account through forums such as the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, they also need to explain to us what will happen to the number of Ministers. I hope that if we are looking to save money by cutting the number of MPs, there will be consistency and that that will be applied to Ministers as well.

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

It is good to take part in a debate under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Your surname is a Welsh surname of considerable importance, so I am sure that you were interested to join us for this important debate. I agreed with every single word that the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), my constituency neighbour, said. The only problem is that there are plenty of members of the Government who did not and, indeed, it may be too late for some of the excellent points that he made to be effective.

One of the good aspects of what is happening this afternoon is that the Welsh Affairs Committee was the only body—the only institution—in Parliament that dealt properly with the question of constituency boundaries in Wales. Hon. Members will know that, on the Floor of the House, the issue of Welsh boundaries was never reached. There was a considerable and excellent debate in the other place, but not in the House of Commons. Similarly, we asked the Secretary of State for a sitting of the Welsh Grand Committee so that all Welsh Members of Parliament could discuss the most important issue that affects our constitution, but we were refused.

When we couple that with the fact that we seem to have lost our Welsh day debate, despite my attempts and those of the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) to ask the Backbench Business Committee to ensure that we did have a debate on Welsh matters, which has been the case in the House of Commons since 1944, we see that the opportunities that we could have had have been missed. Nevertheless, the fact that the hon. Member for Monmouth has initiated this debate is to be welcomed.

[Alun Michael]

My right hon. Friend has made an extremely powerful point about the St David’s day debate. That has always been regarded across parties as an important element in the year. The suggestion that it can be ignored and pushed to one side by regarding it as Back-Bench business is wrong. It is surely business that should be dealt with in Government time, as has always been the case in the past.

[Paul Murphy]

Yes. It is ironic that the Secretary of State has written to the Backbench Committee arguing that there should be a Welsh day debate; I guess the right hon. Lady will now have to argue with her Cabinet colleagues and the Leader of the House to ensure that we have a debate to discuss Welsh matters on the Floor of the House.

The hon. Member for Monmouth did not touch on one excellent point made by his Committee, which is that there was insufficient time for the changes to be debated, and that no draft legislation has come before the House on this important matter. That contrasts entirely with the way in which the Government are dealing with the reform of the House of Lords, where there is a draft Bill, a White Paper, a Joint Committee and an attempt at consensus. None of those were the case for the Bill that we are discussing today. That is to be regretted, because my experience of dealing with constitutional matters, which goes back some years, is that such reform will never last unless there is a foundation of consensus. If they are seen to be wholly partial, which I believe the present proposals are, they will not be of lasting value to our country. The Welsh Affairs Committee was very wise when dealing with the matter.

I have a great deal of time for the Minister, and I welcome him to this debate, but it would be nice now and again if his boss were to turn up. I twice held the post of Secretary of State over a five-year period, and whenever we had important debates on such subjects I thought it important that the Secretary of State for Wales should attend. It has not happened in this Parliament. The only time that the Secretary of State for Wales has dealt with the issue is in reply to the odd question or two at Question Time. There has been no debate. Indeed, she stopped the Welsh Grand Committee debating the matter, so we do not know what she has to say about the fact that 25% of Welsh Members will be losing their constituencies.

Since the Welsh Affairs Committee produced its report, we have had a referendum; that has given legislative power to the National Assembly, and a new National Assembly and Executive have been elected and appointed. The impact of that on the role of the Secretary of State is, if nothing else, hugely significant. Even at this late stage, I still make the plea that, before the summer recess, the Welsh Secretary liaises with the Leader of the House so that the Welsh Grand Committee can debate the matter.

I will not take up much more time because other Members wish to speak, but I want to emphasise one important aspect of the Union. I am a unionist—with a small “u”—and I believe that the union of Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England has proved successful. In Northern Ireland, it is for the people there to decide what to do—the principle of consent. We have seen dramatic changes in the last couple of weeks in Scotland and in Wales as a result of the elections. However, I fear that unless the Conservative party in Britain listens to the Conservative party in Wales—there is a big difference —we are heading for big trouble.

The Prime Minister talks about fighting for the Union with every fibre of his being. I understand that, and I do not doubt his sincerity for a second. However, what has happened to Wales’s constitution and its relationship to the House of Commons and Parliament over the last year shows that we must be very careful in what we do. As the hon. Member for Monmouth said, the reduction in the number of Members is not simply about the same number of MPs representing the same number of constituencies and the same number of electors as with English or Scottish seats. We have a United Kingdom that, by definition, represents the nations within it, and if we reduce the number of MPs in Wales by a quarter—a disproportionate reduction from 40 to 30—their influence in the House of Commons and in Government will be seriously weakened. We have made that point to the Government time after time, but they have shut their ears.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Murphy]

That is because the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2010 was born in a partisan way. Had it been dealt with like the legislation for reform of the House of Lords or other constitutional legislation, and a consensus arrived at, we would not have the present trouble. People simply see it as a means of cutting the number of Welsh Members of Parliament. The chances are that more Labour MPs are likely to be cut than those of other parties—we do not know; it could be the other way around—but we all ought to be fighting for Welsh Members of Parliament to have their say strengthened in a United Kingdom Parliament rather than weakened.

[Alun Michael]

Does my right hon. Friend not find it ironic that the capacity of Welsh Members of Parliament to work together and speak with one voice was illustrated through the calling of a meeting—the first for many years—of the Welsh parliamentary party specifically because the Secretary of State was not listening to Welsh MPs speaking with one voice? Does he not think that there is very strong representation and strong teamwork across Welsh MPs and that the analysis quoted by the Minister is simply misplaced?

[Paul Murphy]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend and that was why a meeting of the Welsh parliamentary party was called.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to comment briefly on one or two of the issues that have come up in the debate, which has revealed the fragile nature of our discussions about democratic arrangements.

It is a mistake for proportions and figures during a general election to be the only issues that determine the size of constituencies or which constituencies are represented. In the House, we are referred to by our constituencies rather than by our personal names, and that reflects the fact that we are accountable to an identifiable constituency of people; that is where the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), in making the case for single transferable vote or another proportional system, misses the point. He made a powerful case, with which I agree, about the different countries of the UK being represented disproportionately to reflect another element in democratic accountability. That is something that we ignore at our peril.

If we look merely at arithmetic and not at accountability, we will end up with the sort of situation that we have in the European elections. MEPs already represented large constituencies—the size of something in the order of seven or eight Westminster constituencies—and they now represent people in the whole of Wales. By and large, following an election, more or less the same people are returned—albeit in a different order, so someone is higher up the list—and the situation is the same with the regional lists for the Welsh Assembly.

It is important to look at the relationship between MPs and AMs. One or two hon. Members have touched on that point. During the first period of the Assembly, my AM, who stood down at the last election, was an incredibly close colleague because we served and were accountable to the same constituency; my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) made that point. As we have seen in Wales, it is difficult enough to ensure that the relationship between AMs and MPs is adequate, strong and effective, because many of our constituents do not know who has which responsibility—they are not terribly interested; they just want a response. An MP and an AM working together can give very powerful representation in this place, and that is extremely important.

Accountability is an important part of democracy. Democracy cannot be served only by artificially constraining the number of electors. Of course there needs to be proportionality and a system needs to be as sensible as possible and as near to a norm as is practical, but it also needs to respect the nature of communities and democracy. In the reorganisation of local government in 1973, the legislation referred to an important principle, which was the starting point for building up the wards that councillors represented. It was to look at how people identify themselves and within what community, and to identify the wards and councils only as an aggregation of the communities that the local people identified. That principle should apply in constituency representation too, but by and large it will go out of the window as the new constituencies are identified and developed for new parliamentary representation.

On how to deal with the number of AMs, I argued for a different arrangement from the one that the then Secretary of State, Ron Davies, brought forward, which he had argued for in opposition. That system was the one that we have—of 30 Members and top-up regional arrangements. The disadvantage is that, in elections, more or less the same people are likely to be returned in more or less the same order.

[Guto Bebb]

Is not the real issue with the list system the fact that it is a closed list? At the recent Assembly elections, electors in Wales could not even choose a name from the list, but simply voted for a party. That is a dereliction of democracy.

[Alun Michael]

The alternative to that, which would also be simpler, would be regional lists by party; how people voted in constituencies would determine who was elected. People are very confused about having to vote a second time and they are not sure what they are voting for, although the hon. Gentleman will have been pleased to note that they overwhelmingly voted for the Labour party across Wales.

I suggested a system of two Members per Westminster constituency elected by alternative vote, which would have given roughly the same degree of proportionality as we have now, but retained the accountability to a constituency. I hope that we do not lose that accountability for Wales, that a method is found of ensuring that the Assembly has the appropriate number of Members and that we do not lose for ever—even if we do lose it for a short period—the coterminosity between Assembly and Westminster constituencies. It is a strength of the system that I want retained and, if we lose it for a period, I want it to return as quickly as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

I would be very loth to second-guess anything that the Deputy Prime Minister might think.

The focus of the Select Committee report was the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, which is now an Act. I reiterate the point that was made throughout the Bill’s passage through Parliament: the principal thrust of the provision is to ensure fairness in our electoral system. I have heard what Opposition Members have had to say about that, but it is inherently unfair that the vote of an elector in one part of this country should carry greater weight—in some cases, much greater weight—than that of an elector in another part of the country.

The right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) made the point that he has made on previous occasions—that the so-called Welsh vote has to be protected. I very much share the view of Professor Richard Wyn Jones, a very distinguished academic whom I know, who says that this situation is something that has grown up over the years. In evidence to the Select Committee, he made the interesting point that in 1543, when Welsh Members of Parliament were first admitted to this place, the population of Wales was approximately 7% of the combined population of England and Wales and Welsh representation in terms of Members of Parliament was also approximately 7%. He said that there

“wasn’t any kind of formational deal that Wales should be over-represented”.

He added that since then there had been a “drift” in Welsh representation in this place. He went on to make the fair point that in the scheme of things, it is hard to see how a reduction from 6% to 5% of MPs could make that much difference to Welsh representation here, particularly when it is borne in mind that the overall number of Members of Parliament will be reduced from 650 to 600.

Another important point that he made, and which I put to the right hon. Member for Torfaen during his contribution, is that Welsh Members of Parliament hardly behave as a bloc. I heard what the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) had to say about the Welsh parliamentary party, but I have to say in all frankness that at that party’s most recent meeting, representation by Conservative Members was rather light, underlining the fact that Welsh Members of Parliament do not behave as some sort of single coherent body.

[Alun Michael]

I really do not understand why the Minister makes that point, as it suggests an element of disengagement on the part of some Conservative MPs. At that meeting, one of the Minister’s hon. Friends made a very constructive intervention, commenting that the meeting had been more constructive and consensual than he had expected.

[Mr Jones]

The Member who made that point was the only Member of the Conservative parliamentary party at the meeting—[Interruption.] I know that the right hon. Gentleman is disappointed that more Conservative Members of Parliament did not attend, but that underlines the fact that party politics, across the political divide, prevail just as much in Wales as in the rest of the country.