Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, the Committee owe a great debt of thanks to my noble friend Lady McDonagh for moving the amendment, to which she spoke so well, as have others. Her analysis of the role of constituencies and how important they are was worth listening to, and I hope it was taken on board on the government Benches, as it clearly was on our own. It was a genuine attempt to help the Government get this vexed issue right. Before I come to the Front Benches’ response, I accept that my noble friend’s amendment is partly a probing amendment but also means what it says. It was great to hear from other noble Lords on this issue. How proud the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, must be of his son who is here watching these proceedings, but not half as proud as his son will be of him, not just for being here but, more seriously, for the important role he has played over the past years in making sure that Northern Ireland is a proper and sane country. We share that view. I do not think she is in her place, but my noble friend Lady Billingham talked about her seven constituencies when she was an MEP. I mention her particularly because I was the chair of the Euro-constituency for that entire time, and what a magnificent MEP she was. I was a bit disappointed when my noble friend Lord Kinnock talked about the explanation of the 600 seats, because I had been totally convinced just half an hour before by my noble friend Lord Harris’s explanation. I do not know which to choose now. There must be an explanation, I am sure. I hope that we will hear about it from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, but I will not hold my breath. As far as constituencies are concerned, there is an extraordinarily good quote from the late Lord Callaghan, who said in a House of Commons debate as long ago as 19 June 1969: "““Constituencies are not merely areas bounded by a line on a map; they are living communities with a unity, a history and a personality of their own””.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/6/69; col. 742.]" We on this side say ““Hear, hear!”” to that, and I know that many on the other side really believe it to be true. Constituencies are much more than just a line on a map. The great danger of the approach that gives an exact number of constituencies that there must be is that the constituencies are in danger of becoming lines on maps. All the amendments in this group and those that follow are clearly better than what the Bill offers in terms of quality of representation, disruption to constituencies and all the other arguments. However, they all fall into the trap that an exact number of seats proposed by the Government and passed by Parliament is a grievous fault. We heard at the start of the debate from my noble friend Lady Farrington that the last time that there was an exact number of seats decreed by Parliament was 1832. That may be some explanation of why the Deputy Prime Minister claims that these reforms are the greatest democratic reform since 1832; I cannot think of another explanation. We and the Government have been forgetting that Boundary Commissions and Parliaments in the past have been very careful in the language that they have used in setting out the existing rules, as my noble friend Lady Nye mentioned. If the Committee will forgive me, I will remind it of the existing 1986 rules passed by a Conservative Government: "““1.- (1) The number of constituencies in Great Britain shall not be substantially greater or less than 613. (2) The number of constituencies in Scotland shall not be less than 71. (3) The number of constituencies in Wales shall not be less than 35. (4)””—" this is a bit of a mouthful— "““The number of constituencies in Northern Ireland shall not be greater than 18 or less than 16, and shall be 17 unless it appears to the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland that Northern Ireland should for the time being be divided into 16 or (as the case may be) into 18 constituencies””." That is not quite as clear, but the rest of it is beautifully and deliberately phrased so as not to set an absolutely exact number. There is great strength in a system that says that Parliament sets out a rough guide of how many Members of Parliament there should be, but the independent Boundary Commission has the job of actually deciding how many seats there are. It is a strong argument and it diminishes the danger the Government find themselves in of setting an exact number and then being accused of trying to fix the system. I hope that is not what the Government intend to do. There is a danger that that is what they will be perceived as doing if they do not move off this idea of a fixed number.