Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I have known my noble friend for a long time. We were in a team together for much of the 1980s. I have never known him to be constrained by anything. I am glad to hear that he was at least constrained on that occasion. I start with this preliminary point about the style of government. If the Government are serious about democracy and listening to the arguments for and against, they will not juggernaut the Bill through at odd hours of the night when, as my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition has said, there will be a differential turnout in any vote, depending on who is more tired than anyone else. There will not be the sort of objective discussion that we would hope for. I was thinking of paraphrasing Bob Marley about how a hungry man is an angry man. A tired man is not a good legislator. I recall, on one occasion in the other place, having three all-nighters in succession on the Steel Bill. No one, anywhere in the House, can think that the Steel Bill was at that time a proper piece of legislation. However, sheep-like, we went through the Corridor. It was done mechanically, with no serious debate. I hope that, as in the spirit of this place, we will reject that sort of movement. Turning to the numbers, the central question, which has not received an answer is: why 600? There is clearly an argument for a certain flexibility, as the noble Lord, Lord Maples, has said. Perhaps I can share some degree of experience on this. I had the privilege of representing two very different constituencies in the other place. One was the constituency of Monmouth, which at that time had not been won by my party previously and had been represented by a great parliamentarian, Lord Thorneycroft, although he was not called that then. It was a typical county seat with quite a sizeable electorate. I was able to manage it reasonably well because it was a highly educated constituency. The sort of problems that were brought to me were, as often as not, those of planning permission. I recall one village meeting when there was a question as to whether a local bus should be discontinued. The grandees in the village said, ““No one takes the bus anyway. Why should we bother?””. Only afterwards did a couple of rather poor people detach themselves and think, ““We use the bus””. They just did not, alas, have the self-confidence to make that point. That was one constituency, which was quite manageable. If the electorate had been not 75,000 or 78,000 but 100,000, I could still have managed the constituency effectively. I then had the good fortune to move to the much safer seat—the electorate chose, not me—of Swansea East, which is a seat of multideprivation. In the schools there are many statemented pupils, and special needs are substantial. Often, folk did not have the self-confidence of those in the traditional county seat. I had been a diplomat or a civil servant for some time, so if nothing else I had learnt how to write a letter. Sometimes I felt that in trying to represent my own people—I was born in a working-class street and brought up in the city of Swansea—I had a role like that of the letter-writer in an Indian village. I was able, because of my privileged background, to write letters on behalf of these people. There has to be a personal touch. One of my sons worked for an American Representative. He hardly met this Representative at all because the office was so large. The US Representative had an automatic signing machine. I very much hope that these have not reached Westminster. They have, have they? Certainly, they had not come when I left the other place in 2005, as far as I can recall. It meant that people in his constituency or district received letters that had had no personal attention at all from the Representative. As a matter of honour, I made sure that I was in my constituency on Saturday mornings, sometimes for six or seven hours. I made it a point of honour to walk, as often as I could, through the market in Swansea to meet people and learn about their problems. That local touch is so important. Clearly, as night follows day, the larger the constituencies are, the less there can be that local touch, which humanises government, makes people feel less alienated, and makes them feel that the Government—indeed, Westminster and the whole establishment—are on their side and doing their best to help them. Therefore, drawing this odd figure of 78,000 out of the air and stretching it in this way—I think my noble friend mentioned a Procrustean bed—can have malign effects. I am certainly convinced not only of the arguments for democracy generally but of those for fitting an electorate according to the needs of particular people. I fear that this figure of 600—chosen from the air and for which no explanation has been given—will certainly not do that. Wales will be hardest hit. I will not dwell on this because I know that other amendments will allow me to wax, I hope rather eloquently, on Wales and my own city. Wales, by any rule, is hit by far the hardest by this proposal. It is likely that the number of seats in Wales will be reduced from 40 to 30. Wales is a relatively disadvantaged part of the United Kingdom. I know that my noble friend Lord Touhig, if he is able to make a contribution and who has experience of the western valley of Monmouthshire, will make the same sort of point. We are relatively disadvantaged; therefore, there is a greater need for that human touch. We all accept that, just as the number of seats in Scotland was reduced when primary legislation passed to the Scottish Parliament, the same must happen in Wales when it follows the Scottish precedent. However, there is no case for moving from 40 to 30 seats now. Wales has always been slightly privileged in this way for good reasons and that should continue. I will not develop the point, but my own city of Swansea has three seats at the moment, each one of roughly 60,000 people. If we were to go to an average mathematical formula of 76,000 or 78,000, there would be rather less than two and a half seats in my city. That means that it would have to scrabble around for areas that have no natural affinity with the city but which would satisfy some mathematical formula of 78,000 people. In my judgment, that again ignores the human aspect, but I hope to develop the question in relation to Welsh constituencies rather later. In my judgment the Government are going ahead in a rather draconian way. If they want a Passchendaele, they will have a Passchendaele. Lip service is given to accountability but the timetable set for the Bill is not warranted by any objective criteria. Why is it so urgent to get the number of seats reduced from 650 to 600? Is there any objective urgency about that? Is there any reason why there should not be proper debate? Is there any reason why we should not—as the noble Lord, Lord Maples, has done—put across our own arguments and perhaps convince one another of the virtue of those arguments? Although an argument might be made in relation to the referendum on the alternative vote—that is a rather orphan concept because no party in this House wants the alternative vote—by no stretch of the imagination can an argument be made for urgency in respect of the reduction of seats, whether it is from 650 to 600 or, under the timetable set by the noble Lord, Lord Maples, from 650 to 600, 600 to 500, or 500 to 400. At least let us debate that. That could well be compensated for in democratic terms by building up the intermediary bodies, be they the Welsh Assembly or the Scottish Parliament. Clearly, the English electorates have rejected regional assemblies, but that is another argument. Why not give more powers to local government and try to have more parish councils or urban parish councils? I had the privilege of serving on the first ever urban parish council and in my judgment that was almost as close as one could get to Rousseau’s forest clearing of democracy, whereby the people who know one another get together and make decisions related to their locality. Why not have this Bill accompanied by a massive devolution to local authorities—les corps intermédiaires, as the French would say? But no, there is none of that. As regards the numerical range 650 to 600, there is a deep suspicion that 600 has been chosen for wholly partisan reasons. I interjected in the speech of my noble and learned friend to say that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. This is not the way in which we in this country carry out constitutional change. The pendulum will swing. Over the years I have frequently lectured on behalf of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. I have run groups for new Members of Parliament in a number of African countries such as Somaliland. Apart from urging the case for more female representation in those Parliaments, as I am sure noble Baronesses would accept, one of my themes has always been that the majority should not force through constitutional amendments and should not fix amendments which happen to suit their own interest. When I next have the privilege of lecturing to Commonwealth parliamentarians—it is fair to say that they still, for the most part, refer to our own legislative body as the mother of Parliaments—I will be rather reluctant to talk about the principle that the majority should not fix constitutions in their own interest. There should be proper debate and an independent, outside body to monitor this legislation. It should be done not in unseemly haste but properly. If that is not the case, almost certainly one of those Commonwealth parliamentarians will use this as an example of what should not be done.