Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, at Question Time this afternoon the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, asked a very pertinent Question of Her Majesty’s Government concerning what proposals there were to limit the amount of legislation that is churned out by government. As far as I am concerned, he was speaking of Governments of all colours. I did not take part in that debate because so many other distinguished Members had more to contribute, but I feel that one solution to the problem is that there should be a general presumption against legislation unless, on a balance of probabilities, that presumption can be overthrown by showing that it is better to have that piece of legislation than not to have it. That would be a not unreasonable test for legislation in the months and years ahead. If one holds up this issue to that template, the case against this part of the Bill is very clearly made out. We are told that the number of constituencies shall be reduced from 650 to 600. It seems to me that the arguments that are put in favour of that are woefully inadequate and, indeed, very thin on any account. It is said that it would save £12 million per annum. That is a vast amount of money as far as individuals are concerned but it seems to me that you can never guarantee that £12 million would be saved, or even that there would be any net saving at all, because if you change the rules to that extent one never knows what the costs of the other system—the alternative system—would be unless those have been calculated to a very fine degree, which is not the case. The other argument deployed is that many other European parliaments have fewer than 650 Members. Of course they have, because two-thirds of them have a population that is a half, a third, a quarter or even a 10th of our own, so what sort of argument is that? When one compares the number of Members of Parliament in the House of Commons with the comparable situation in Italy and France, one finds oneself very much on a par. Therefore, it seems to me that there is no real argument at all in favour of a reduction. That, I suggest, is the real issue here—not whether the reduction should be X or Y but whether there should be a reduction at all. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, whose speech greatly impressed me, as always, made it clear that a decision should have been taken on the basis of evidence. He and I have lived in a world where people have been determined on the basis of evidence, and on inferences that can be drawn from evidence. Where is the evidence here? You would not hang a dog on these arguments—the £12-million argument and the argument of comparability with other countries. It is perfectly clear that in the past 60 years the number of Members of Parliament has increased—not by much, by 4 per cent—and that during that period the population has increased by 25 per cent. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, advocates an independent examination by the great and the good. I would dearly welcome that. I made my next point last week and apologise for repeating it but that body might come to the conclusion that there should be a reduction. On the other hand, it might come to a conclusion that there should be more Members of Parliament. As we have heard from many noble Lords, Members of Parliament are far more get-attable in this modern, electronic age than they ever were. I was a Member of the other place 40 years ago, and I had a very literate and, if I may say so, literary constituency. I had to reply in my own impossible hieroglyphic hand to dozens of letters nearly every day. I shudder to think what the situation would be now with electronic communication. One does not need any great imagination to ask the question: upon what real evidence is a diminution in the number of Members of Parliament based at all? Is it based on party considerations? I hope not. That would be very unworthy of any of the persons concerned. Is it based upon populism? It may well be. If this issue had been raised perhaps five or 10 years ago, before there was the general opprobrium in which, rightly or wrongly, so many Members of Parliament are held, would the attitude have been the same? Some years ago, a distinguished Conservative Member of Parliament was giving evidence to the Boundary Commission. I do not have the exact wording, but I can guarantee that this essentially is what he said: ““Some of my colleagues are in favour of reducing the number of Members of Parliament, but I am not””. That was Mr Cameron, the Member for Witney. What has changed in the past five or six years? Do the Government really believe that there is a genuine case—a case in reality and in integrity—for a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament? It is only the Government themselves who can answer that question; and it is a vital question. I make no apology for having taken part in this debate. I wish to mention one matter before I take my seat. My noble friend Lord Thomas of Swynnerton and I were suspected last week of having taken part in a filibuster. We spoke very briefly. We made very different points. His were at least as good as mine, but they were pertinent to the issue. I do not think that it came within a thousand miles of a filibuster. To my mind, a filibuster is what happened in the House of Commons at the very end of the 19th century. A Member by the name of Tim Healy—an Irishman who was a brilliant Member and was the first Speaker of the Dáil in the 20th century—had spoken for two and a half years—