Scottish Parliament (Constituencies and Regions) Order 2010

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Advocate-General for Scotland for his introduction to this order, and for his explanation. I am also grateful to his officials for the helpful information that I received this morning. It has certainly been a wide-ranging debate. I am sure the noble and learned Lord is looking forward to responding to all the pithy questions put to him. I would particularly encourage him to respond to the noble Lord, Lord St John of Fawsley. It is quite remarkable, given the current size of the House, that the Government are proposing to bring dozens of new Peers into the House. I am a member of the Leader’s Group, which is looking at retirement options because of concern about the size of the House. I find it remarkable, given that the Government now have a notional majority which we are seeing as the votes come through, that they seem determined to pack this House. It is difficult to see how this House can perform as a revising Chamber if the Government are determined to win every vote. What is the point of the second Chamber in that respect? I hope the Minister will respond to that. As he said, the orders follow the submission of the Report on the First Periodic Review of Scottish Parliament Boundaries by the Scottish Boundary Commission. The intention is that they will apply to the Scottish Parliament elections in May 2011. I start by paying tribute to the Boundary Commission for Scotland. Clearly, not all noble Lords agree with the entire outcome of the commission’s work. However, I do not think that any noble Lord has criticised the thoroughness with which it embarked on this exercise. I should like to ask the Minister a number of questions on the order. The first relates to the timing. As has already been observed, the Scottish Parliament elections of May 2011 are not far off. I know that the electoral administrators have started the necessary preparatory work, but I would welcome assurances from the noble and learned Lord that he is confident that the changes can be completed in time and that the Scottish parliamentary elections will run smoothly and without administrative glitches. In view of past experience, that is not an impractical question to ask. Will the recommendation of the Gould report—that any changes to electoral administration in advance of the Scottish Parliament elections be introduced at least six months before polling day—be adhered to? My noble friend Lord Watson referred to paragraph 8.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which states that: "““the Scotland Office consulted electoral administrators over the impact and risk of the boundary changes being applied to any extraordinary general election called between the legislation coming into force and 5 May 2011””." The paragraph goes on to talk about by-elections. The conclusion of paragraph 8.3 is that the electoral administrators are confident in that regard. I am sure that that is very comforting, but I should like to hear a little more from the Minister about the practical considerations in place that support such confidence. Paragraph 7.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum makes clear that, "““a number of the recommended Scottish Parliament constituencies have boundaries which do not follow existing local government ward boundaries””." Will the noble and learned Lord give a little more detail on the extent to which this has occurred? Paragraph 8.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum states: "““The Boundary Commission’s statutory consultation and local public inquiry process allowed for consideration of representations and concerns about the Commission’s proposals raised by politicians, local authorities and others during the review””." I know that details of the consultation and local inquiries and their outcomes are included in the commission’s report, but it is somewhat disappointing that paragraph 8.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum does not contain more detail of the local public inquiry process. I wonder why that is. Could it be that the Government are embarrassed by the clear evidence in the Boundary Commission’s report that the statutory consultation and local public inquiry process work so well? Indeed, if you look into the report, you find that more than 5,000 representations were received concerning the provisional proposals for constituencies. As a result of that the commission decided that 10 local inquiries should take place, and these took place between August and November 2008. The commission—again this is not in the Explanatory Memorandum but is in the report—states: "““The Local Inquiries were valuable in allowing us to hear evidence from all those concerned about our proposals. The reports on the Local Inquiries provided the recommendations and views of the Assistant Commissioners which we considered, together with the representations received””." A very good example of that procedure was the proposal for a Scottish parliamentary seat crossing the River Clyde, which, the report states, was, "““widely opposed and rejected by the Assistant Commissioner in favour of a scheme of minimum change””." Pages 87 to 91 of the commission’s report are worth reading as they set out the proposals, the results of local inquiries, the recommendations made by the assistant commissioner and the Scottish Boundary Commission’s broad agreement with the recommendation that a constituency spanning the River Clyde was not required. It is an excellent example of a proposal being made that is subject to scrutiny at a local hearing, and then a substantive change being made.