Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

What we have listened to for the past hour and a half is a simple question: what is the evidence? Where are the facts? Quite frankly, I am as puzzled now as I was then, because we have heard only one contribution from the whole of the Benches opposite. Perhaps on this side of the Chamber there are more contributions because this House and the other House always relish people who speak from their own experience. What we are discussing is the impact upon not only Parliament but Members of Parliament, if the change takes place. We can all speak from our own experience. I became a Member of the Commons in 1974. It is now more than 35 years since then. All I can say is that the workload for a Member of Parliament has grown from the days, for instance, when MPs could say to their friends: ““I have to go down to the constituency this month. It is the quarterly meeting of the constituency party and they will expect to see me””. There are some constituencies—I will not mention the political party—which relished the fact that their MP did not live in the constituency. Not any more. The demands of the constituency party on the Member of Parliament are such that he not only lives there, but when they want him, they expect to see him there. I once sat down to a meal in my first year, in 1974, when I happened to be an official on one of the all-party committees. Our guest was Sir Roy Strong, who lived in my constituency, Edmonton. He said, ““Ted, I often see your name doing things in the constituency. That is marvellous. How often do you come there?””. I said, ““I live there””. He said, ““How often do you meet your constituents?””. I said, ““I meet them every day, because I come up from Bush Hill Park station to Seven Sisters and change. I speak to my constituents””. He said, ““Yes, but what happens about their problems?””. I said, ““Every Friday morning, I go to Edmonton Green market and they stop to tell me their problems. If they are complicated, I say, ‘Come down to my surgery’””. He said, ““How often do you meet your constituents in the surgery?””. I said, ““Once every fortnight, without fail; but I deal also with big postbags and small””. I said I remembered that I once, from one fortnight to the next, dealt with 100 cases. I listened to them; it was not a case worker or researcher who did that for me. I did it for myself. He said, ““That is impressive””. He turned to my other colleague and asked, ““Do you have something like Ted’s record in this?””. The other parliamentarian said, ““Perhaps I do not go down as often, but I meet my constituents about 15 times a year””. I asked, ““How does that happen?””. He said, ““I have five towns in my constituency. Three times a year, the Saturday before Parliament meets, I have a surgery. It is advertised. I am there at 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock and 11 o’clock. I have five places where I meet my constituents and I am there three times a year each. That is 15 times””. I said, ““Do you mean that you give up three Saturday mornings?””. He said, ““Yes, but it is not too far to come to Westminster by train. They can come and see me””. I reflected upon the different ways in which a constituency MP looks upon his job. Some look upon it as literally being a shepherd—someone who is there to lead the flock, but is always to be there. I listened, as we all did, to the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Maples, who obviously spoke on behalf of the whole Back Benches on the government side, because we have not heard another contribution to this debate from them. He made me think, because he said that among his ambitions would be to reduce the amount of money spent on staff for Members of Parliament, who do all sorts of things that other people could do. You cannot have it both ways. If a Member of Parliament needs the assistance that Members of all parties have enjoyed for the past 10 or 15 years and this cannot be sustained, that means that the Member of Parliament will take on a heavier workload. I wonder what the Government are intending to do here. Do they just want to save money? Are they reorganising matters so that they are less costly? What will be the impact and effect of that on the quality of democracy and service that we as parliamentarians give? I am puzzled by the silence of the lambs; that was the title of a film that I saw. Noble Lords on the other side of the Chamber are keeping silent, first, because they have been told to. As good party Members, they support their Government. I do not blame them for that. However, at the end of the day they must ask themselves whether this is the way that we should conduct our business. When I was the opposition Chief Whip many years ago, I dealt with four Chief Whips. The noble Lord, Lord Denham—Bertie Denham, a marvellous man—was succeeded by Alexander Hesketh, by the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, and then by a man who was then much younger and more sprightly, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I say without a shadow of a doubt that I never had a problem with any of the four, and nor did they have a problem with me. Whenever I was asked outside the House what the Chief Whip does, I would say that he is a last resort for avoiding trouble in the Chamber. I wrote a book called From Tyne to Thames Via the Usual Channels. People asked whether ““the usual channels”” was an allusion to Tyneside or the Thames. I explained that the job of the Chief Whips, when there was trouble in the Chamber, was to meet, and that I could not recall an occasion when the government Chief Whip of the day was unable to come back and say that the matter had been solved. There was parley: you gave and you took, and there was a settlement. What I cannot understand about the present position is the downgrading of the worth and the quality of the usual channels. I am satisfied that if the government Front Bench wished, they would be able to find a compromise, because at the end of the day that is what the government Chief Whip is for. In the last great constitutional debate, in 1998, I spoke on the second night at 2.30 am. I was speaker 184 in a list of 192. That was all done by agreement. Forget the issues: agreement was reached and we were happy as a Government to collaborate in that situation. When I reflect on the Government's intentions, I find it very sad. The two parties have come together as a coalition and each laid down what they want to get out of their agreement. What suffers as a result is the standing and stature of this place and of the Commons. We should not stand for that here. I am a loyal supporter of my leader, of my Chief Whip and of my Front Bench, and I will do what I am asked to do in this situation. However, I cannot help feeling that this is a sad day and that this is a sad Bill. It is one of many and we should not see any more.