Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, bearing in mind the late time of the evening, I will also try to be relatively brief. First, I apologise to my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton for missing the first moments of his moving the amendment. I am inspired to speak by an encounter with my friend with a small ‘f’, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who earlier this evening urged me to speak in the debate because he had missed my dulcet tones, as he put it. I am always at the disposal of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for that. The noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, referred to Strathclyde Regional Council’s electoral registration duties. I was for five years a councillor on Strathclyde Regional Council, and I can testify to the noble Lord’s account of how it took its duties seriously. We were severely affected in Scotland and—my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport has referred to this—are still affected by the poll tax. The integrity, the aura, if you like, of the electoral register has been damaged. It is no longer an article of faith to make sure that you are registered. Lasting damage has been done to democracy by the imposition of the poll tax. In discussing the Bill, I keep thinking that something is ajar or unbalanced. This is a constitutional Bill. One combination of votes in a House of Parliament can force through constitutional change, especially in a House where, previously, no single combination had the majority to deliver such legislation. I know that some people will jump up and say, ““We are a coalition; we are still Conservatives and Liberals””. In this place, the Government are a combined operation and have a majority. That is unhealthy. This is a constitutional Bill, so that is entirely wrong. The rush to get it through is causing problems. It is causing problems for the Government, because I can read people's faces to a certain extent, and although the noble Lords on the Front Bench try very hard, they are not convincing all their Members. At this stage, most of them are voting for it—I think that the occasional Peer may vanish—but they are not winning the intellectual argument, because those on our Front Bench are putting the case. The rush through this House is causing strains. It is causing noble Lords on the government Front Bench to act in a manner which, with two exceptions, is foreign to their character. I do not know about the third one, but certainly for two of them it is foreign to their character. Surely the electoral register has to be right before we start drawing boundaries on the basis of it. The amendment would ensure that the Boundary Commission had to do everything ““reasonable””—that is the key word—to ensure that people were registered to vote. Earlier, a noble Lord mentioned that we cannot make folk vote. As a noble friend of mine said, that is a different argument. It is our job as parliamentarians—Government and loyal Opposition—to ensure that people want to register and have that choice. It would be outrageous if they did not have that choice. If they do not vote, that is a condemnation of us all. We all have a duty to try to get there, but no one party or combination of parties should have the power to legislate, especially when it is changing the constitution of the country. The harsh realities of local government life, especially in the next year or so at least, will be cuts. There is not a statutory duty on a local authority to have a positive electoral registration policy and to go out and look for people to register. The harsh reality is that the pressure is on councils to deliver a social work department, especially for the elderly and children, or an education department and, life and human nature being what they are, electoral registration is nebulous and not an immediate thing for the people concerned. That is the damage that this coalition Government are doing to democracy. I do not think it is an evil coalition; I do not think the coalition Government are there to do bad things deliberately; but the effect is bad, and that is the damage they are doing to democracy. A previous friendly skirmish with my good old quarry, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, prompted me to table a Question to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, regarding over-18 populations and those who are registered. For instance, in my former constituency of Rutherglen and Hamilton West in 2008, the population was 80,103 but the electorate came to 77,363, which is an imbalance of almost 3,000. I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, may say that because the register is going to be taken from December 2010, there is a hope—it can be only a hope—that they will have caught those missing people and got them on. I trust the figures of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, and arithmetic was never my strong point, but when I totalled all the different figures, there was a disparity of 281,000 people over 18 in Scotland who were not registered to vote in mid-2008. Without a measure as contained in this amendment tabled by my noble and learned friend, I do not see how that can be made up. Surely 283,000 is a massive disparity. I understand the pressure of getting a Bill through the House, although I have never resorted to writing notes or anything like that. The figure of 281,000 was only a couple of years ago, and who is to know what the disparity is now? The figures for 1 December 2010 will not be published until February, so I cannot refer to them. It is quite clear that there is a lot of work to be done on the register. I am surprised that somebody has not jumped up and said that the previous Labour Government did not do anything about this. Is it going to be the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace? That is fine, but the difference is that if the previous Labour Government can be criticised for not doing enough on that, that previous Labour Government was not undemocratically changing the constitution of this country. That is the difference because that is what is happening. I am glad that the noble Lord took over to raise that while I am on my feet. We have this problem with registration. If this amendment is not the proper way to go about doing something about it, I do not hear anything coming from the government Front Bench to tackle that disparity, and I look forward to hearing whether there is any positive response to the justified fears that are being expressed.