Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Robert Syms Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend heard me correctly, but for the sake of clarity and emphasis, I shall repeat the figures: there are estimated to be about 4.3 million overseas citizens of voting age, a mere 23,388 of whom, in December 2011, were registered to vote, according to the ONS electoral statistics.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

What a contrast that is with the French, who have created a parliamentary constituency covering London and northern Europe because of all the thousands of French voters in London. They can now vote for a Member of the French Assembly.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention, but actually it is more dramatic than that. The French gave away two Members of Parliament, in Paris of all places, who are now specifically responsible for all French overseas voters. I am not going anything like as far as that, but I want my hon. Friend the Minister to consider the regulations in the way I will set out.

It is certainly not that British people living overseas have no interest in taking part in our elections, so the figures I have now quoted twice surely suggest that the system for registering overseas voters actively deters voters from registering. Otherwise, would not more of them want to register? If I explain to the House the rather protracted process for becoming an overseas voter, perhaps my point will become clear.

To apply to become an overseas voter, a person must obtain and complete a registration form, and send it to the electoral registration office for the area in which they were last registered to vote. So they have to find out where they were last registered to vote and precisely which district council and registration officer to send their form to. To confirm that the person is a British citizen and that they are not living in the UK when they apply, the application must be witnessed by another British citizen living abroad, who can be hard to find, particularly if the person lives in a rural area.

Here, then, is the first of my sensible suggestions to the Minister: an alternative would be to use a person’s passport number as proof of identity. The current system is potentially time consuming and undoubtedly puts people off registering to vote in the United Kingdom. Instead, a simple system for overseas voters involving the help of, and co-operation with, the Home Office and Foreign Office could be implemented. All potential overseas voters hold a British passport, details of which are held by the Identity and Passport Service, which is part of the Home Office. Passports do not contain addresses, although the IPS holds a delivery address for the passport when last issued. Where these people live is immaterial, however; what counts is their known UK address before moving abroad, because that determines the constituency in which they are entitled to be registered.

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[Dan Rogerson]

My question to the Minister is: if such a process is to be extended and codified in a new way, can we ensure that we provide information to candidates about how to contact those electors through whatever means is appropriate? It is important to examine the question of how a constituency MP or even a local councillor is to represent people in this category who have elected them. It is not just a question of the election alone, as the role of representing such individual people is also important.

[Mr Syms]

I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). We all know the history—that the first Thatcher Government implemented legislation, which was then watered down in the wash-up, as a result of which overseas voting has never really taken off. For the reasons already set out, it has seemed to be too difficult and too complicated. Given that there are a potential 4.3 million people abroad who could vote, yet only 23,000 are registered, we ought to be ashamed of the fact that we are not engaging with so many of our citizens.

We live in a global economy. Our future lies in exports and in our companies going abroad. We all know that in getting and undertaking export contracts, we have people in the middle east and elsewhere working for British interests sometimes for years. It is totally wrong if people without a home in the UK who are nevertheless working for British interests abroad do not have the opportunity to vote. Let us not forget that even those who retire to the Costa Blanca or other areas in Spain will have spent a lifetime in the UK working and paying taxes. They will often have family in the UK and still take an interest in what goes on here. Many get British pensions and some in the Costa Blanca even get winter fuel allowance. We seem to be able to pay benefits to retired people abroad, but we have not given enough priority to making a few simple changes in order to empower them by giving them the right to vote.

My hon. Friend argued powerfully about overseas voters registering their last address in the UK, but I am rather attracted to the French system of putting them all into one category and perhaps having an MP at large to represent certain areas abroad. That would make life somewhat easier than the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) having to e-mail 25 people in Alicante. It is better if the MP represented these people’s concerns, as it might be necessary for the MP to make representations to Spanish local government about what it is doing to the health service.

[Mark Field]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if all 4.3 million overseas electors were to be registered, it would be a matter of some concern that some 7,000 electors would be added to each and every constituency in the UK? Going down the route of designated MPs might well be the right model, as there will be a trigger point somewhere between the current 23,000 and the 4.3 million.

[Mr Syms]

Absolutely, but we would be winning even if got a few hundred thousand registered to vote. What we need from the Government are assurances that they will not only look at the law, but have a long-term campaign to keep those leaving registered and to re-register those abroad. People abroad buy British newspapers, watch Sky television and take an interest in what goes on. I believe that they still have beliefs in what is right for their country. We could argue about modern democracy, electoral reform and proportional representation, but it ill behoves a party that has argued for PR to deny 4.3 million people abroad their vote.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) on leading this debate. To have 10,000 service personnel in Afghanistan who were either not registered or unable to cast their vote at the last election was a disgrace—one for which we should all apologise. Rather than wait for this Bill to pass and for the regulations to be laid, we should ask Defence Ministers to make it the responsibility of adjutants in every unit to ensure that people are registered and to make arrangements so that voting papers get to them in time.

I am on record as saying that the move to individual registration is not necessarily such a brilliant idea. We know from Northern Ireland that it helped to reduce the inflation on the electoral roll, but we do not know how many of those who should have registered did not do so under the new system—but I do not want to go into that now, as it requires separate legislation.

The last time I spoke on voting I said that we have a responsibility to ensure that people in prison are registered to vote, but whether or not they can will depend on future decisions in the House. However, I would be interested to hear whether, if the law is changed, the Bill will allow for the registration of people in prison. If so, would that be done through individual registration, or would there be a responsibility on the Prison Service or the Ministry of Justice to make the arrangements?

The major group of people referred to by my hon. Friend are the more than 4 million people abroad who are not registered but should be. We must make sure not only that they can be, but that they are, registered to vote. That brings up another of my campaigns—that we need to get rid of the anomaly whereby half of our overseas pensioners do not get increases in their state pension while the other half do. The ones who do not receive it are probably the ones who need it most. We need to understand the effect of registering overseas people to vote, and it is right to ensure that people are not excluded.

One of the newer democracies is Tunisia—I have been there twice, first for its constituent elections and then to help with training for parliamentary activities. Tunisia has overseas voters and Members of Parliament representing Tunisians overseas. Whether we choose to follow that approach or to get people to vote in their existing UK constituencies is a matter for debate and decision. What is certainly not a matter of debate and decision is the fact that if we leave 4 million people—roughly 10% of those who should be eligible to vote—off our voting list, we will have failed. It does not bother me whether people are abroad because they have retired, because they are working there or simply for enjoyment. The fact is that they should be entitled to vote; it is our job to make sure that they can be registered. Having done that, it is then our responsibility to make sure that they use their registration and cast their votes.

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[Mr Harper]

The right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and a number of others raised a point about service personnel. About 75% of our service personnel are registered to vote. I will not be quite as harsh to Labour Members as one or two of my hon. Friends were, because, admittedly, their Government made some progress, on that as on many other issues involved in the Bill. Some of my hon. Friends took every opportunity to harry Labour Members, but they did make progress, although, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who has now left the Chamber, they did so only at the last possible moment. At the time of the most recent general election, they made specific arrangements to enable our service personnel stationed in Afghanistan to vote.

One of the problems involves the electoral timetable, which, for general elections, is quite tight. I will not go into that in detail now, because we will deal with it when we reach clause 13, but one of our reasons for wanting to extend the timetable is our wish to ensure that overseas voters, both service personnel and others, have a much more realistic chance of casting a vote themselves, by post, rather than having to rely on appointing a proxy. I think that if they could vote by post and had an opportunity to make their votes count, more of them would feel incentivised to do so. When our troops are deployed overseas in significant locations, we will repeat the exercise that the Labour Government organised for the general election and we organised for the referendum on the alternative vote, and take specific steps to enable our service personnel to participate. Like my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), I am very pleased that we are retaining the first-past-the-post system for the foreseeable future.

[Mr Syms]

Is not one of the good by-products of five-year fixed Parliaments the fact that everyone will know the most likely date of a general election well in advance? That will make electoral registration for central and local government, and the build-up to it, much easier to deal with.

[Mr Harper]

Yes, that will make a difference. My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) gave some statistics. In the December 2010 register, which followed the most recent general election, 32,000 electors were registered to vote overseas—which, admittedly, is not a huge number in comparison with the 4.3 million cited by my hon. Friend—but by the following year, the figure had fallen to 23,000. It appears that the incentive of the general election is a spur to registration, as it is for domestically residing voters. I think that knowing when an election will take place will help both registration officers and people living overseas.

My hon. Friend referred to the attestation requirements involved in the registration process. I know that they can pose difficulties, especially in countries where there are not many other British citizens. We are trying to establish whether there is anything that we could do. If we need to alter the requirements, we can do so by changing secondary legislation. We are also considering a trial of online registration, which I think could help not just voters living in the United Kingdom, but those living overseas.

That brings me to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall about communication. The Government are currently trialling—without universal approbation from Members on both sides of the House—a website featuring statements from all the candidates for the police and crime commissioner elections, which will then be promoted by the Electoral Commission and in the material that goes to voters. We may consider a similar procedure for a general election, with an eye on overseas voters.

I should also say to my hon. Friend that overseas voters can vote only in parliamentary elections. That makes their relationship with their local councillors slightly less consequential, but it also means that their votes are not just about who their Member of Parliament will be but about what flows from that, namely who will govern their country—and they are, of course interested in that.

My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds made the important point that most British citizens overseas are working there, winning orders for Britain and working for British companies that bring wealth into this country. It is important for them to have an opportunity to contribute to the decision on who will govern the country.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Robert Syms Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I disagree with my hon. Friend. Even if we successfully push our proposals through in their current form, and we have the first set of such elections in 2015, most Members of the other place will still be unelected. Secondly, regardless of how many Members of the other place are elected, we are talking about primacy. Effectively, the amendments would move power away from this House to the other place. Whatever one’s views about House of Lords reform, I picked up clearly from our earlier debate that most Members of this place want it to be clear that this place has primacy over their lordships’ House. The amendments, perhaps inadvertently, would lead to a different situation.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

Under the Bill, a large number of Members of the House must vote for a Dissolution. The person who decides whether there is a general election is, therefore, the Leader of the Opposition, because if the Government and the Opposition want a Dissolution, it happens. Under the amendments, the House of Lords would effectively be taking power away from the Leader of the Opposition, who would be in a position to provide the numbers for a Dissolution.

[Mr Harper]

I agree. The fact remains that we are taking powers away from this House and giving them to the other place. It has been clear to me from our earlier debates that that view is not widely shared in this House, and indeed, interestingly, it does not appear to be widely shared in the other place. As I observed from careful reading of the report of the debates there, many speakers were very concerned about the primacy of this House, which was good of them. They said that they did not want to damage it in any way. Plainly their support for the amendments was inadvertent; they may not have thought through the consequences fully. I therefore think it would be sensible for this House to disagree with their lordships, and to give them an opportunity to reconsider their decision and return the Bill to the form in which it left this House.

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[Chris Bryant]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will not, as I am keen to conclude my remarks.

The Minister asked whether both Houses should decide. That goes to the heart of the matter. Yes, we believe that both Houses should decide, but if the Minister had wanted to change that, he could have tabled an amendment in lieu of the Lords amendment, which could have said that just as in the provisions on an early general election, there would be a vote in one House—this House. There could have been a vote in this House on whether it was a fixed-term Parliament. The Government’s response tries to bind a future Parliament in an inappropriate way. I think that is a mistake, so we will support the Lords amendment.

[Mr Syms]

It is this House that determines who the Government are. This is the majority House. As we know, the upper House is a hereditary or semi-hereditary Chamber. Even under the proposals for election, it will not be the majority House. It is therefore proper and responsible that this Chamber should determine whether there should be a fixed-term Parliament. That is not the business of the upper House. The decision has to be made in this House.

The only question to debate is whether it is the Prime Minister who makes the decision or the House. Historically, it has been the Prime Minister. We have had a constitutional change. I am a conservative with a small c and I do not generally like change, but one has to acknowledge the fact that in order to command a majority in the House, the measure is part of the deal. That is a good reason for doing it. If that was not part of the deal, one would not necessarily be in government and doing many other good things for the country under our programme.

We all know that Prime Ministers lose the confidence of the House. There are occasions when Prime Ministers are challenged, and one of the things that bolsters unpopular Prime Ministers is the threat of Dissolution. It is up to them. They can throw the cards up in the air and call a Dissolution, even if they lose the confidence of their own party. That has always been one reason why Prime Ministers have stayed in Downing street when there was good reason for moving them out and having a vote of no confidence in a political party.

The other factor, which is one of the different features of modern politics, is that there are now more parties in the House—we have the Greens in this Parliament—more of a fracture in the current political system and more regional parties. It will probably be more difficult in the longer term for a party always to be confident of a majority in the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) is right. Coalitions may be more a part of the future than some of us who prefer majority government would like to think.

The Government’s position is tailored to that situation, so I will support what they are doing today. Circumstances have changed, and if one has to make a decision, it is better that political parties and the usual channels in the House determine a Dissolution than an unpopular Prime Minister who may have a different agenda from others in the Chamber.

[Mark Durkan]

I am delighted to be able to agree with the thrust of the remarks of the hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms) in relation to the key effect of the Lords amendments, which would extend the power of the House of Lords as it now stands and in whatever future shape it takes, by making sure that the upper House was in a position of dual control with this House on whether there was a fixed-term Parliament. We know from sentiments already expressed in that House—echoed many times in this House—that there is opposition to serious proposals on Lords reform, and in those circumstances I would certainly not indulge any extension of their powers or ability to trespass on the primacy of this House, which is exactly what the amendments would do.

A number of weeks ago the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) rightly lampooned the democratic credentials of the other Chamber, and yet now he wants to extend its control over the democratic proprieties of this Chamber and over whether there is certainty on when there will be a general election. I fully agree with him that those of us who believe in fixed-term Parliaments face a predicament with the Bill, because many of us believe that four years is the natural term for a Parliament. It was the natural term that this Parliament chose for the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments, and it was right that they were comfortable with it, but because Parliament is opting for five years, those assemblies will also have to shift to five years, which I do not believe is the natural rhythm for fixed terms.

Nevertheless, it would be a bit much for someone like me to use the fact that I believe in four-year terms, in addition to believing in fixed-term Parliaments, to vote for rupturing the nature of the Bill. As someone who is proudly in the Irish Labour tradition, I have great regard for Jim Larkin, who once said that the purpose of politics was to keep narrowing the gap between what is and what ought to be. I believe in fixed-term Parliaments. Unfortunately, the only choice we now have is five-year terms. In future, I hope that other parties will be elected with a mandate to alter that fixed term to four years and that future Parliaments will do that, but I believe that we will reach that stage quicker by voting for fixed-term Parliaments now and amending the length of the term in future. If instead we get to the meaningless point of having a Bill that is a fixed-term Parliaments Bill only in name, rather like the two-hour dry cleaners that tells customers to come back next Tuesday because “two-hour dry cleaners” is just the name of the shop, that Bill will not fulfil its purpose in any real way.

In relation to the amendments, there is a curious idea that both Chambers would decide on whether there would be a fixed term, but there is uncertainty on when those resolutions would be laid and who would lay them. The references to the Prime Minister in some of the amendments relate only to moving the date of an election back by up to two months, and I think that some people have misread that and think that it means that the resolution would have to come from the Prime Minister, but it would not. It seems that we would be left with a curious situation in which anyone could seek at any time to move such a resolution in either Chamber and create various difficulties that would simply add to the political mess and to the uncertainty on whether we have fixed terms.

I also agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda in his criticism of the Bill’s provenance and the fact that it came about not to fix the term of Parliament, but to fix this Government. It was intended to create a fixed-term Government and a fix for this Parliament. For that reason it is wrong and it is bad. However, the amendments would have the effect of prescribing legislation that would have every Parliament begin with a Government using their majority to fix the term in a way that suited them. He said that any Government worth their salt would do that early on in the term, and presuming that an Opposition worth their salt would oppose it, we are left asking what the point would be and what such legislation would achieve, other than an unedifying procedure each time a recently elected Government appear to fix the terms on which they will govern which the Opposition resist. The whole idea of a fixed-term Parliament Bill is to ensure that there is no political speculation or contention on those issues. Looking at the nature of some of the other clauses and amendments, I do not believe that the Prime Minister is ceding as much power as some hon. Members have said.

This is an unusual and uncomfortable experience for me, but I concur with the Government on these Lords amendments. Unfortunately, on this occasion I have to disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda while fully agreeing with his basic, continuing underlying criticism of some of the background to the Bill.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Robert Syms Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

I believe that the amendment draws attention to something that is at the heart of the debate about AV: the weighting of particular votes. Under our current system, people vote positively. They go out and vote for a particular party. They have one vote, and if they vote more than once they are disqualified. They must make a choice. Under AV—under the system that may be proposed by the Government tonight—it is possible to vote one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times. What the system does not take into account is the strength of people’s preferences. A first preference may be outweighed by a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh preference. That moves us away from positive politics, and I do not think that the system will be made any better by a second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth choice.

We are committed to a form of AV. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), in the London elections we have supplementary votes. People vote once or twice. In practice, most Members who are elected have well over 40% of the vote, and it would probably take only one count of the bottom candidate, or perhaps the two bottom candidates, before someone would have more than 50%. If we want a system under which people have majority support, I am not sure that we need “one, two, three, four, five, six”. I think that one or two might produce a better, more efficient, more effective system.

We must consider the weighting problem. Under AV, a candidate with 20,000 votes could lose. If two others gained 10,500 votes each, a candidate with twice as much support as the second candidate could come second overall. The weighting element is a weakness of AV, although it is not a weakness of proportional representation, because PR—particularly in its purest sense—involves equality of votes. Under our current system there is some wastage of votes, but people vote positively. Under the additional member system, in both Wales and Scotland, the list provides a balance against first past the post. The more choice people are given, the more likely it is that a second or third choice will outweigh a first choice. I do not think that that is fair or right. People will be allowed to vote many times because they make the wrong choices three or four times.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman said that in Wales and Scotland there was a list to balance the inequities of first past the post. Is he one of those who feel that inequities are manifest in first past the post?

[Mr Syms]

I have always supported first past the post, but if I were to argue for any alternative I would go for the German system, which could effectively be used in Scotland or Wales. I think that it is a better, more logical system, which retains the link between Member and constituency. However, that is not what is proposed in amendment 62.

I think that the amendment is sensible because it goes to the root of AV, which is the weighting of votes. Endless weighting of votes makes a system that is meant to be fairer much more unfair, because those who have a first choice are cancelled out. It might be fairer if someone’s second preference were counted as half a vote, or someone’s third preference as a third of a vote, or someone’s fourth preference as a fifth of a vote; but treating the preferences equally produces lowest-common-denominator politics. It means that the least offensive people can win, and that those with the most positive and passionate politics can lose.

[Chris Bryant]

I believe that the hon. Gentleman is opposed to the use of AV, full stop, and will argue for a “no” vote in the referendum. I should have thought, therefore, that it would make more sense for him to ensure, according to a sort of Maoist principle, that the question on the ballot paper is the one that he can most easily attack.

[Mr Syms]

I am not sure that the average voter will be much impressed by having a choice between one to seven or just a supplementary vote. I think they will be utterly confused in the coming referendum, and who wins and who loses may well be in the lap of the gods.

The weighting of votes is the weakest element of AV. I am committed to the coalition agreement and I will vote for the Bill and support the Minister, but I will also participate in the debate and I think that, regardless of whether the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is a probing amendment, it is a useful contribution to the discussion of the relative merits of the AV system, which does not have many merits.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

I will be very brief and I will try to stick directly to the issue in hand. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) that no electoral system is perfect, and I believe that first past the post is the best system for electing Members of this House. However, I do not agree with the Maoist principles to which the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) just referred. If we are going to put a choice to the people, those of us who believe in first past the post should want to propose against it the best possible version of AV so that if the referendum result is the opposite of what we want, we still get an acceptable electoral system.

To answer a question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch in his opening remarks, I believe the reason the Government have got this right and their proposal is better than the supplementary vote system is that if we are going to give people the option of a preferential voting system it should be the option that gives electors the maximum flexibility possible. I am opposed to preferential systems that make people express a preference. I think that many of my constituents will choose just to cast a first preference vote for the candidate whom they most want to be elected, and I am opposed to the supplementary vote system—which the previous Labour Government forced on us in London—because it allows those electors who wish to express preferences to express no more than a second preference.

My position is very clear, therefore. I am in favour of first past the post, but if we are to give people a preferential system it should be a system that allows electors to express their preferences.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Robert Syms Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

That is a very helpful intervention, because my hon. Friend will know that in the programme motion that I laid before the House last week we made provision for the House to sit until 11 o’clock this evening, which, notwithstanding Mr Speaker’s decision to allow an urgent question, means that the House will have more time today to debate those matters than it would have had if we had not tabled the motion. I am very keen to ensure that the House makes progress. That is not entirely in my hands—it depends on every Member ensuring that we can debate all these important matters—but I certainly want to reach that debate and will do my best from the Dispatch Box to ensure that we do.

Government amendment 262 mirrors the position for UK parliamentary and European elections and is necessary to ensure that counting officers and regional counting officers are suitably equipped to conduct the referendum poll.

Government amendment 270 provides that across the United Kingdom the polling stations allocated for the referendum will be the same as those allotted to electors for UK parliamentary elections. The amendment also provides that where special circumstances arise, the counting officer can allot different polling stations.

The Government have tabled amendments 168 and 169 at the request of the Electoral Commission. Paragraph 5 of the schedule gives the chief counting officer a power to direct regional counting officers and counting officers in the discharge of their functions at the referendum. The amendments clarify the extent of the power of direction and specify that it includes any planning and preparatory steps essential to the smooth running of the poll. That will enable the chief counting officer to require regional counting officers and counting officers to provide copies of plans, risk registers or other things that demonstrate that they are, or will be, discharging their functions in accordance with the chief counting officer’s directions. We believe that the amendments are necessary to enable the chief counting officer to prepare, plan and manage the poll effectively and to ensure compliance with any directions issued within the scope of her power.

Amendments 265 and 266 allow for the fees that are paid to counting officers and regional counting officers for delivering the referendum on the voting system to be reduced in circumstances where they fail to meet an adequate standard of performance.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

Is there any provision for a recount if the poll is very, very close? There have been several incidents across the world with hanging chads and so on. Have the Government thought about that possibility?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend will have noted that we are going to debate recounts under amendments 153 and 154 to schedule 2. I am sure that if he waits for that point in the debate, we will be able to engage in some dialogue.

The approach that I have outlined will apply only to the fee paid for the performance of a counting officer’s duty relating to the referendum. It will not impact on the level of expenses that the same person can claim for carrying out their duties in their capacity as the returning officer for the election.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Robert Syms Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

I rise to support the Bill. I am a supporter of first past the post, but frankly the system will not work unless there are regular reviews of electorates by the Boundary Commission. I helped and participated in the last boundary review, which was really a kind of 18th-century procession around the country. The commissions managed to do inquiries for north and south London, and for west and south Yorkshire, but did each individual area on its own, which took such a long time. There is no reason why the process cannot be speeded up and yet remain impartial and allow for representations.

There are five days to discuss the Bill on the Floor of the House, which is ample opportunity to make further representations regarding some form of public inquiry, but we do not need barristers and others to turn up to give evidence in each individual county of three, four or five constituencies. That is too slow. As we have heard from a number of my hon. Friends, we have just fought an election that is already 10 years out of date. Unfortunately in the modern age, people move, which causes disparities and unfairnesses. That has to be addressed by this House. If it is not addressed, we will end up in a situation in which one party wins most of the votes and another party wins most of the seats. That sometimes happens because of bizarre quirks in the electoral system—for example, in 1951 Labour had more votes and we had more seats—but broadly speaking people get what they vote for, if the boundary system is up to date. So reform is necessary.

It is sensible to proceed on the basis of the Bill. No one can argue that this is being railroaded through, as it will have five days on the Floor of the House. At times, in opposition, we pleaded for more time to discuss constitutional Bills, but we were given no more time, we faced guillotines and we could not discuss them. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) was his most genial and persuasive self this afternoon and I agreed with much of what he said, but I sat on the other side of the House when we discussed electoral reform for the European elections—a list system that was introduced without a referendum, and without even the boundary commissions looking at how the regions were drawn up. We had massive disparities between Wales and Scotland and the south-east of England. That change was railroaded through by the Government. The right hon. Gentleman’s case would be more persuasive if he had not put that legislation on the statute book.

[Mr Straw]

I was trying to keep my remarks brief, but I did point out in the Queen’s Speech debate that one blemish—for which I was responsible—on the previous Administration’s otherwise good record in seeking all-party consensus on constitutional issues was the European elections system. I regret that. It was not a good chapter for the Labour Government, although no one could claim that we did it for party advantage, because it worked against our party and helped small and fringe parties.

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[Mr Syms]

After 30 years on the Front Bench for the right hon. Gentleman, it is nice to hear all his confessions. However, some of us warned of the problems when the legislation was considered. For example, I made the point on Report about extremist and nasty parties benefiting from the electoral system that was being introduced, and we have seen the British National party and one or two others getting in. The system, because it is purely democratic, sometimes allows people to be elected when perhaps the first-past-the-post system would not.

We have to look at this Bill as sensible and pragmatic politicians, and if we want first past the post to continue—as I do—we must have boundary commissions that can produce regular reports, get through the business rapidly and produce constituencies of equal size.

I welcome the proposal for 600 Members and I agree with the point that if the number were reduced too much it would increase the power of the Treasury Bench and the Government. If we reduce the number of Back Benchers without reducing the number of Ministers, it would change the balance of the House.

We have had several boundary reviews in which the number of Members has gone up. We are not as big as we were when the southern Irish were here—at one point, there were 700 Members—but in each boundary review a compromise is reached at the end and the numbers tick up. We need to top off those numbers, reduce them modestly and, in future reviews, perhaps reduce them still further. We do have an awful lot of Members of Parliament. I accept that there is more work, including e-mails, but we have more staff than we did when Enoch Powell used to sit in the Library writing his letters by hand. Things have moved on, but—especially with an elected or substantially elected upper House—we could have fewer Members of Parliament.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that at a time when public servants across the public sector are being asked to find efficiencies it would be strange to exempt Members of Parliament from the same challenge?

[Mr Syms]

There is a broad point about the cost of Government, but there is the other point that Members of Parliament sometimes save money, represent their constituents and help to break logjams in the legislative and bureaucratic system.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

My hon. Friend mentioned the elections to the European Parliament. If we are going to change any voting system, surely it should be those elections, in which only 30% of the electorate turn up to vote, because they are very unhappy with how we vote for MEPs. Conversely, in our elections the turnout is 70%. Most people are happy with the way they elect us, but not with how they elect their representatives to the European Parliament.

[Mr Syms]

I am sure that that is the case.

The basis of this Bill is still geographical representation, which has served our country well over a long period of time. However, the matters that we are discussing today are not new. In fact, AV went on the statute book in the Parliament of 1929 to 1931. The economic crisis and the formation of the National Government changed that, because the legislation was taken off the statute book when the national Government were formed. There was a debate in the House in 1933, initiated by a Liberal, on electoral reform in which Clement Attlee spoke from the Opposition Benches in defence of the first-past-the-post system. He was challenged by Sir Herbert Samuel as to why he had voted for AV, and he stated: “It was the result of a bargain with the Liberals. Although I voted for it, I disapproved of it.”

That was in 1933; we are now in the year 2010. No doubt that was an unprincipled agreement, rather than a proper coalition agreement such as that which we have today, but first past the post has lasted rather a long time. People have said “RIP” to first past the post many times before. However, I am happy to vote for the Bill and send the referendum to the British people, because at the end of the day, I trust the common sense of the British people.

Debate on the Address

Robert Syms Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend makes two powerful points. Of course we want to enable people to integrate into our wonderful society. It has many benefits—freedom of association; freedom to hang out with who we want to hang out with; freedom to marry who we want to marry; freedom to go to a polling station and vote for the person who we want to represent us, for better or for worse—so I agree with him: there are many, many things that need to be done.

While I have the attention of the House, let me say that it is so nice to speak to such a packed House. Many new Members will smile at that, but let me tell them that there will be evenings when they are speaking to no more than three or four people, so this is a good outcome for those who have made their maiden speeches today.

Within the Government’s priorities, of which there are many, they have paid great attention to the issue of health and the provision of health care to our constituents. I would make one plea to them. I see my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) in the Chamber; he has played a great part in raising in this place the profile and status of mental health. Nevertheless, mental health remains a very unfashionable subject, and that is a great shame. Many of our constituents live daily with terrible conditions that impact on their lives, on their happiness and that of their families, and, collectively, on their families’ prospects.

I know that tough decisions will need to be taken on the allocation of scarce resources, but, for too many decades, mental health has been left behind. It has been at the back of the queue. It would be churlish if I were not to pay tribute to the previous Government, because they did start to address the shortcomings in funding and to ensure that the mentally ill got the care that they deserved. I have every confidence that my Government—this Conservative Government supported by my Liberal Democrat friends—will pay the same attention to mental health and elevate it further up the list of priorities in the NHS.

There is nothing more rewarding, having made a speech in this place raising an issue of great concern, than to have someone come up to you very quietly in your constituency, take you by the arm and thank you in a private, understated way. That is when you know that you are making a difference and giving people a voice who would otherwise not have one.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

Mental health issues affect almost a quarter of people at some stage in their lives. During the last Parliament, I was surprised to discover how many people on incapacity benefit had mental health problems. They have particular difficulty in getting back into work, and they need special packages. This is a key issue, and my hon. Friend is perfectly right to raise it.

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The longer people are out of work and not socialising with people in the workplace, the worse they feel about themselves. They disengage from society, which has an impact on their mental health and on their ability to lead fulfilled lives. It is incumbent on the Government to ensure that people who are not in the workplace and not actively involved in the economy are given every chance to take part in the world of work again, and to make a useful contribution to society—a contribution in which they can take great pride. This is not just about the amount of money they earn; it is about giving them a sense of self-worth. My hon. Friend has made a very good point.

[Mr Syms]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling argument. A key point is that many of those people were persuaded to take jobs on the basis that they would receive support packages—perhaps to do with travel or other forms of support—that have not necessarily turned out to be as good as they expected. The difficulty is that, once someone comes off benefit, they find it very difficult to get back into the benefits system if a job does not work out. The transition from benefit to work is an important stage at which to ensure that they get the support that they need to undertake a fulfilling job.

[Mr Walker]

Again, my hon. Friend makes a good point.

In concluding my remarks on mental health, I must point out that there are far too many initiatives. There are also far too many different groups and professional set-ups providing support services to people with mental health problems. We need to streamline all that. People with mental health problems do not want to have to relate to seven, eight, nine or 10 teams; they want to relate to one team that can give them the support that they need in order to manage their illness, recover from it—if that is possible; it is not always so—and get back into work to lead a fulfilling professional life.

So, Mr Deputy Speaker—Mr Speaker! I see that you are back in your Chair! How exciting! I have waffled on for far too long, but I should like to conclude with these few slightly rebellious remarks. There is a great tension in this place between Parliament and the Executive. For 100 years, the Executive have cleverly taken powers out of the hands of Parliament, taken them on board and used them for themselves. I hope that in the years ahead we will start to take some powers back from the Executive, find our collective voice on behalf of this nation and restore people’s confidence in us.

I say to new Members, “Do not look towards any Government to raise the status of the House of Commons.” That is not the responsibility of the Government and I assure new Members that if the Government try to do it they will not do a particularly good job. It is our responsibility to raise the status of the House of Commons, and I am very much up for the challenge, just as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East, who wants to intervene, is up for it.