Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity to follow my noble friend Lord Howarth because the point he has made about the law changing attitudes in this case is very valid. If we were able to see this House accept my noble friend’s amendment, it would be a signal of the determination of the establishment of this country to reach out to those in minority communities. It had not been my intention to speak to this amendment, but my noble friend Lord Boateng’s very persuasive argument in relation to it has made me rethink some of my own attitudes. I think that some of us assume that communities are to a large extent homogeneous and that people go out and register their vote. However, I discovered a key thing in the 1970s when I was general-secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland, having come from a community that had almost no minority members at all but was also made up largely of incomers. I come from the industrial west of Scotland where people settled either as a consequence of the highland clearances on the one hand or the Irish potato famine on the other. The policeman would be a native Gallic speaker and the miner would be a native Gaelic speaker. Often the two communities existed in complete oblivion of each other. It was probably not until I went to university that I was aware that I had actually been brought up in a Scottish town because all my heritage had been Irish. One of the reasons for making that point is that there were very few black people in that community. The only black people were Pakistani shopkeepers, and only a couple of handfuls of them at that. They transformed the community because, for the first time ever, you could get a pint of milk after six o’clock at night. Thirty years later, I was elected as the Member of Parliament for that community. What was interesting was that the demographic had barely changed. What had changed was that those Pakistani shopkeepers were extremely wealthy small businessmen and absolute pillars of the community. But the real eye opener for me when I moved on to the Scottish stage was realising the sense of alienation, particularly among the Chinese community, who operated pretty much in isolation. The most shocking thing I found as someone trying to engage other women in the political process was the extent to which Pakistani women were completely blocked out from the opportunity to participate politically. At the time it caused me to look hard at how you get people from minority communities to engage in the political process. The light bulb moment was the recognition that it was not just about language, although that was significant. I was helped enormously by people like my colleague from the other place, Mohammad Sarwar, who helped to engage the Labour Party in the Pakistani community in Glasgow. I also discovered the extent of suspicion of the political process. That was because of people’s backgrounds and fears, which were perhaps linked to the reasons why they had left their countries to come and settle in the United Kingdom. Some of them were second and third generation, but they were frightened of the consequences of being seen to be part of a political system and perhaps of taking the wrong decision as to which party to support, thereby being disadvantaged in the community. I was enormously impressed by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, just as I was the other night, when he emphasised how important it is for us, as the country that boasts that it has in this Building the mother of all Parliaments, to be able to set examples. The Deputy Prime Minister has called this the greatest piece of constitutional reform since the Reform Act 1832. Were the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, to look at some of issues contained in the amendment of my noble friends Lord Boateng and Lady Thornton, he would have the opportunity to table a ““Wallace of Tankerness”” amendment to the constitution, which would help to make this society a much more engaged and co-operative one in which to live. The more I have listened to this debate, the more I have found myself thinking about issues such as compulsory voting. If we are to reach out to communities that feel detached from the political process, we give them an opportunity to play a much fuller part in society. We have so far seen no movement in this House or the other place on this legislation. It is regrettable, because opportunities are being missed to change the nature of political debate and engagement in this country. I urge the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, and his ministerial colleagues to look seriously at the amendment, although not necessarily to give us an answer tonight. The action proposed in it would require a significant advertising campaign, perhaps using the new technology that the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, knows so much about. It would certainly require the leadership of the Secretary of State, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, set out. This is an opportunity to do something that should span every political view in this House—except perhaps one or two that we shall not mention here—and make this a much more inclusive and democratic society.