Parliamentary Boundary Commission: Electoral Administration

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

That this House takes note of the implications for political representation and democracy of the current proposals of the Parliamentary Boundary Commission and matters relating to electoral administration.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I start by apologising to the Cross Benches. In all my 11 years in this House, I have diligently avoided provocative party-political contributions, apart from on electoral registration and during the passage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. The latter was a blatantly political Bill, introduced for party advantage, with its proposed reduction in the number of parliamentary seats favouring the Conservatives.

This debate is a direct product of that legislation, which was introduced in the wake of the expenses scandal and led to the creation of IPSA and other measures that have so undermined the institution of Parliament. IPSA has so demeaned the role of MPs that they are reduced to scurrying around the Commons Tea Room gathering their receipts for food while they collect Starbucks-type points for refreshments. These are the people we elect to run the country and they are being humiliated. Weak politicians—no match for the great statesmen of the past—have swallowed a tabloid pill and, in many ways, stripped the Commons of the gravitas and dignity that has so characterised the past.

That is the background to this debate—a Parliament of 650, under tabloid pressure, to be reduced to 600. A dark shadow now stalks the lobbies, cafes, bars and corridors of Westminster. We have entered a world of dog-eat-dog as parliamentarians fight it out in what has been described as the largest and most profound redrawing of constituency boundaries in a century.

To those who think I am exaggerating, I say that they should step down the corridor and ask around. The anger is everywhere, with the result that the overwhelming response of MPs to news of this debate has been positive. As one MP put it to me: “Just say what we can’t say”. Young men and women who have been elected, and in some cases committed their careers to underremunerated public service, find themselves caught up in a debate so sensitive that open discussion is often quite impossible. It is not just the 50 seats involved, it is the fact that the whole country is being redrawn, causing deep anxiety. Despair and anxiety have become the hallmarks of many a political household in the land. While spouses fret, long-term political friendships have become clouded in suspicion. There is an overwhelming feeling of injustice among Britain’s MPs, many of whom have spent decades building up relationships with their constituents. At the stroke of a commissioner’s pen their lives, careers, family ties, political organisations and loyalties are to be disrupted, leading to widespread insecurity. It is all so unfair.

It is increasingly clear that the Liberal Democrats will ultimately be the main casualties. Many of them have had to struggle hard to win seats in Parliament, sometimes over decades, and a worried Mr Clegg is reported to have demanded that the commission reviews 69 seats in the south. I am afraid that he is a very late convert to the growing reality of political extinction. For example, Vince Cable must be finding his vital work as Business Secretary greatly disrupted by proposals to abolish his Twickenham constituency and force him into a run-off with Zac Goldsmith. Goldsmith’s bottomless pit of cash enabled him to displace the rising star MP Susan Kramer, who is now a Member of this House, in what can only be described as an outrageous campaign distorted by money over years. Mr Cable should beware.

Then we have Iain Duncan Smith, a man for whom I have much respect. Some of his policies may disturb us on these Benches, but nevertheless he is widely respected for his political courage. I understand that he is beside himself with anger over the carve-up of his seat. He has described the whole exercise as grossly unfair and in unrepeatable language in private. He now has to spend this Parliament worrying anxiously as he casts his eye over his shoulder in search of a seat while gazing blindly forward to the prospect of possible political oblivion in the Commons. His treatment is appalling.

What about Norman Baker, a Liberal Member of Parliament—a beacon of environmental enlightenment on the Liberal Democrat Benches? He has to fight in the most difficult of political circumstances to save himself from political extinction. He is surrounded by a sea of entrenched conservatism, so what will happen to him? How can he keep his eye on the ball as a progressive Transport Minister when he has to worry about the prospect of political survival?

Then we have George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose task is to steer the economy through a sea of international financial turbulence. Could it be that the distraction of a boundary review, which abolishes his seat, accounts for the somewhat erratic decision-taking under his watch as we move deeper and deeper into recession? What of his constituency neighbours? They must be worrying that he is to be given some unreasonable advantage under a Central Office-organised attempt at constituency seat allocation or fix, not because he is necessarily the best candidate—I do not know—but because he is the Chancellor. They might find themselves cast aside totally unfairly on a playing field of fix and manipulation.

What about the flamboyant Nadine Dorries—populist to the core? Some say she is the voice of hardcore Conservative Britain. She is an MP loved and loathed in equal measure—loved by an adoring Conservative public and loathed by many of her parliamentary colleagues who envy her willingness fiercely to spell out what she believes to be true. Her calculation is simple. Faced with extinction she has two options: to speak up, be heard and hope that some Conservative association decides that it wants her; or to keep her head down, be a good girl and sink without trace. She has chosen the former. What is interesting about her case is that her approach may be contagious.

It is not that the populist wing of the Liberal Democratic Party does not have its share of rumbling resentment. We have Mr Timothy Farron of Westmorland and Lonsdale who spends his time criticising the coalition in public in the media and then blithely votes for the coalition’s policy in the Division Lobbies of the House of Commons. He wants it both ways. Well, his constituency party is going both ways. It is the victim of one of the most ludicrous boundary changes in the country. The commission is taking out the lakeland town of Windermere and tacking it on to the constituency of Copeland on the west Cumberland coast, which is currently represented by the excellent MP Jamie Reid. To pass from Windermere to the body of the new constituency, you would have to drive over the highest mountain pass in Britain, the Hardknott, with its 1:3 gradient. When you drive over it—as I have done regularly—it is so steep that you cannot even see the roadway over the bonnet of your car. The proposal is utterly absurd and makes a laughing stock of the commission. I understand that, quite unusually, all the Cumbria parties are united in their desire for revisiting the Cumbria boundary proposals.

Then we have Mr Clegg himself. He is surrounded by a sea of Labour and Conservative MPs. Local Tories trumpet that he is out. He cannot, in some desperate attempt to survive, meddle in neighbouring seats to build a new constituency base. He has only the knackers yard to look forward to. I suppose he could seek election to an elected House of Lords or even move to an appointed one under the patronage arrangements he so strongly opposes, although, as the architect of current proposals for Lords reform—which I support—he may not find too warm a welcome. I suppose he could disappear to Europe as a Euroflunkey, an appointment which is likely to be opposed by a coalition of Conservative Eurosceptics and Labour MPs who resent his support for the austerity programme. However, is he being fairly treated? Or do we turn a blind eye and say that he has only himself to blame? Even Mr Clegg deserves fair play.

Then we have the appalling proposals for Delyn and the Vale of Clwyd in north Wales, where David Hanson, the decisive and highly respected Minister in the Blair-Brown years, is being set against one of Parliament’s most effective campaigners, Chris Ruane—two first-class performers forced into a duel, where the real casualties will be Parliament and the people of north Wales. As Mr Ben Wallace MP, who has to fight it out with neighbouring and fellow Lancashire MP Mr Eric Ollerenshaw, said, “My poor constituents are run ragged by these changes”.

However, ill conceived marriages in Lancashire are not unique. We have the Salford-Manchester marriage, the Rutland-Corby marriage, the Leigh and Makerfield-Westhoughton marriage, the Broxtowe-Rushcliffe marriage, the Chingford-Edmonton marriage, the New Mersey Banks seats, the City of Gloucester-Forest of Dean marriage, the Anglesey-Bangor proposals and the Devon Hall seat. The list is endless. Liberal Democrats in the Midlands have described their marriages as schizophrenic, unnecessary and haphazard. David Davis MP was reported to have claimed that,

“this process is highly corrosive of effective representation”.

A member of the shadow Cabinet wisely drew historic parallels, claiming:

“This is like the partition of India. Somebody has sat down in a room in London and drawn arbitrary lines through communities they know nothing about”.

What I really worry about are the implications for the quality of the membership of the House of Commons. The new regime, the humiliation of MPs, IPSA’s irrational decisions, the uncertainties over electoral registration, the use of the guillotine, the intimidatory approach of the press to MPs as exposed during the Leveson inquiry and the pay disincentive mean that men and women of real talent and potential public service contribution will refuse a role in our mother of parliaments. This is a shame. They notice one massive sense of insecurity that pervades our institution, realise that it is only further aggravated by ill conceived boundary review and refuse to join a system where the earning and retention of constituency loyalty can be destroyed on the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen. They want security for their families. The result of all this is that we will lose many of the lawyers, trade union leaders, businessmen, doctors, strong leaders from local government and the exceptional that Parliament so desperately needs. All these changes are destroying the incentive to become a Member of Parliament. This whole project is wasteful of talent. We are playing a very dangerous game, and I say “Stop it now”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I stand corrected.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Does the noble Lord think it proper for prominent Liberal Democrats to trade Lords reform for the reduction in seats?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am deeply grateful to the noble Lord and all those on the other side for their sympathy for the position of the Liberal Democrats. We are a coalition Government and bargain every single day on a whole host of things. I have no knowledge whether what Mr Richard Reeves said as he left for the United States—very unwisely, and without any authorisation or standing, I thought—relates to anything that is being discussed between the two parties.

I hope that I have covered most of the points raised. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, asked about the application form, which again we will return to when we discuss the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. I understand that the application form that will be designed by the Electoral Commission must include a statement about the possibility of a fine and the size of that potential fine. We were discussing that in the debate in the Moses Room yesterday on the question of behaviour change and how one designs forms best so as to influence people to do the right thing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, we have had an interesting, indeed excellent debate, unlike in the House of Commons where there has been almost no debate on these matters since the passage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill and a debate that took place on the problems in Wales in Westminster Hall only last week.

I regret that more Conservative Members felt unable to participate in our debate, apart, of course, from the courageous noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, who is known for her preparedness to stand up and say what she thinks. She argued valiantly in defence of an impossible case. Equally, the Liberal Democrats are hardly overrepresented. We have their electoral guru, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who has substantial knowledge on these matters, although it was noticeable that while he argued for equalisation of electorates, he did not oppose the reduction of seats from 650 to 600 for the next general election. He should impress on his prominent Liberal Democrat colleagues, and Mr Hughes in particular, who have been peddling the line, “No Lords reform, then no boundary change”, that they are not helping the case for Lords reform. They fail to realise that many Conservative MPs, as against the Conservative Party organisation, do not want boundary changes, so their mantra is an invitation to Conservative MPs to block Lords reform. It could all backfire.

I was, as ever, greatly amused by the comments of my larger-than-life noble friend Lord Foulkes, on my self-denying ordinance on the generality of legislation, but he need not worry. The excalibur is as sharp as ever. My noble friend Lord Wills referred to the failure of the Government to establish a cross-party group on electoral registration and the immense danger of underregistration. The latest Bill has just completed its passage in the Commons, so let us hope that by the time we get it in the Lords it will be suitably amended to deal with the looming and inevitable difficulties.

The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, drew attention to the startling proposal that the electorate of 204 constituencies be changed by 50% or more, tearing up identifiable communities. My noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton expressed her deep concerns over the lack of a detailed assessment of the combined effect of all the changes on the health or democracy. My noble friend Lord Clark of Windermere was so right when he said that too many people were left out to dry and that party leaders should have been more supportive of Parliament when the institution was under attack.

My noble friend Lady Corston drew attention to the ludicrous proposals for Gloucester and the Forest of Dean, and the Mersey Banks constituencies. They are but two of hundreds of similar anomalous examples where local people are objecting. My noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon in winding up from the Front Bench stressed that local ties and the integrated nature of communities were cast aside in favour of a numbers game. How very true that is. As for the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, I have to say that I was not altogether convinced by his arguments justifying the seat reduction or by his attempt to assure my noble friend Lord Wills that electoral registration will be successfully introduced.

I can only repeat my proposed concern over what all these changes are doing to Parliament, as set out in my earlier contribution. I only hope that some way to reverse this whole policy of constituency reduction can be found. I believe that all these proposed changes can bring nothing but harm, worry and disruption to the whole parliamentary arrangement. I am indebted to the House for the opportunity provided by this debate.

Motion agreed.