Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 26th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I just popped in today to see this Bill put safety to bed, having participated extensively in Committee and on Report—speaking on it for far too long, noble Lords may wish to shout. I was therefore surprised to see the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, and to hear his speech. I congratulate him on a passionate and thorough speech, but one which should have been made at Second Reading. It was a perfect example of a Second Reading speech, and it would also have gone down perfectly well in Committee.

The noble Lord has apologised to the House for coming to the matter late in the day, as he put it, for which he blamed the pandemic. We have all had to change our modus operandi because of the pandemic, but I cannot imagine why, over the past four months, he was unable to participate in any stage of this Bill, online or in the Chamber. While I participated upstairs in Grand Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, participated from somewhere in the south-west—Devon, I presume—and many other noble Lords participated online. As a new Member, I made mistakes on the procedures, etiquette and courtesies of this House and had to apologise. I know he has apologised today, but the procedure that he has adopted, coming in with this amendment out of the blue at this late stage, is not the right thing to do in this House. I hope that he has not been used as a Trojan horse by the Liberal Democrats, because this has all the smell of a Liberal Democrat ploy. Someone else moves an amendment, the noble Lord has said that he will not vote on it, but it looks as though the Liberal Democrats will force a vote on ping-pong at this stage.

Irrespective of the merits of the arguments and the passionate speech by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, we should follow the usual customs and courtesies of this House at ping-pong.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Blencathra makes a very important point, one that was acknowledged in his speech by the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, when he said that he would not be pressing his amendment to a Division. That is right. Reversing that famous quote from TS Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral”, he was doing the wrong thing for the right reason, rather than the right thing for the wrong reason. I have great sympathy with him. We should move on with this Bill now, but we cannot escape facing up to the realities of compulsory registration.

Some of your Lordships may recall the phrase, “no taxation without representation”. If you are obliged to have your national insurance number and to pay tax, you should be obliged to be on the electoral register. I would go one step further: I believe in compulsory voting. That does not mean you cannot destroy your ballot paper or write, “A plague on both your houses” on it. I believe it is a civic duty to take part in the electoral process whether by casting or spoiling your vote.