Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I certainly agree with what the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) said about this Bill's being a Christmas tree bill. I also agree with what he said about the ombudsman. A number of serious aspects of the Bill could have been attached to the tree rather more usefully than some of the stuff that is in it. In introducing the debate on Third Reading, the Minister said that the Bill had matured like good wine. It is certainly different from the previous version. It is very different from the draft Bill, to the extent that one might fear that this is one of those French wine scandals. The original draft Bill had about 45 clauses, 17 of which are now no more—they are nowhere to be seen. The remaining 28 clauses form less than a third—more like a quarter following our proceedings on Report—of the Bill. This is a very different Bill from the one with which we started. It is certainly much longer, as it is about double the size that it was when we started to discuss it on Second Reading. The main measure of how different the Bill is can be seen if one looks at the long title, which is now nearly three times longer than the title with which we started. Topic after topic—and specific topic after specific topic—have been added. That is an interesting way of assessing what has happened to the Bill. The Government never wanted it to be a constitutional reform Bill in the sense that it was about the constitution of the country. The long title was never designed to allow extensive debate about any topic of constitutional reform. It was specifically designed to describe a small number of specific reforms. Having set out on that route, the Government then added more and more specific topics without there being any great theme. Nevertheless, there is much in the Bill to welcome. Let me start with new clause 37, which the Minister spoke about at the start of his speech, about counting votes on election night. I strongly welcome his comments on that measure, especially the way in which he described how it will operate. It is important that it should have the flexibility that he described because there is a danger, especially when there is consensus in the House, of legislating at great speed and ending up with an unworkable, rigid piece of legislation. I hope not only that returning officers will listen to what the Minister and the Opposition spokesman, the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), have said about how important this matter is to many Members of Parliament, but that they will listen regarding the important flexibility that the Minister put into his interpretation of the new clause. In some parts of the country, votes are never counted on election night. Indeed, in some areas, such as the far northern islands and highlands of Scotland, there have been times when the count did not happen until the Saturday. We must understand the practical difficulties that many returning officers face. The omissions in the Bill are very important. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) has described many aspects that the Select Committee on Public Administration wanted to discuss. One such missing issue is the measures regarding the role of the Attorney-General that were in the draft Bill but mysteriously disappeared from the version that was put forward on Second Reading. I have wanted to discuss that issue throughout the Bill's various stages, including Committee and Report, but we have not got around to it and we have never had a proper debate about what the Government were up to. It still strikes me as utterly unsatisfactory that a Minister of the Crown should have a decisive say in any way about whether a particular individual or company is prosecuted. That aspect of our system of government must be put right. International organisations have noted that that is not how a modern state should operate. Nevertheless, the civil service part of the Bill is a great achievement and should be strongly welcomed. The last-minute acceptance of new clauses on special advisers should also be strongly welcomed. They are not quite right in our view and so we tabled some amendments regarding those measures, which were never discussed, about precisely how that should be done—in the law or simply in a code of practice. Another crucial issue that we never got around to discussing is how many special advisers there should be and whether there should be a numerical limit. Without such a limit it will still be possible to appoint 3,000 SpAds and to end up with a senior civil service that is more of the American style than the British style. We should have discussed that issue more seriously. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on getting the provisions of the Crown Employment (Nationality) Bill through. He has been struggling with those measures for many years, and it is good to see that, in the end, they have made it to the statute book—at least at this stage. I strongly welcome the progress on the treaties part of the Bill, but there has not been much progress. The Government still insist on using the negative resolution procedure, which effectively denies Parliament a voice. It is a more open procedure, but it still is not effective. It is disappointing that the Government have chosen not to move on other aspects of the prerogative on which they have promised to move since at least 2007 and earlier, such as war powers and the Dissolution of Parliament—an issue that we will face all too soon. On the referendum on electoral reform, it is the wrong system, as it is not a proportional system. However, that reform is a small step in the right direction. We are prepared to face a referendum with equanimity. We hope that a future Government will move much more radically towards an electoral system that is not only fair but produces legitimate Governments. The present system produces Governments who are elected on such a low percentage of the vote that, regardless of party, they have little public support—so little, in fact, that they are unpopular and illegitimate from the start. I very much welcome those parts of the Bill that deal with the implementation of Kelly. I think that the Government have fulfilled their promise in that regard, and that is much to be welcomed. On the House of Lords, I am greatly disappointed that we have not made proper progress towards the promise that my party made in 1911. We promised then to introduce a House of Lords that was elected on a popular basis, but it looks like 100 years or more will pass before we achieve that. I am sure that there are members of the Conservative party who hope to delay it even longer, but it must come. We cannot have a legislature that is appointed. We cannot have people with a serious say in what counts as the law of the land who are not elected—