Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

On those constitutional reforms, we very rarely went with the Conservatives. On the CRAG Bill, as those on the Front Bench know, we were willing to give them full support. They should not come to me with arguments about the previous Government’s position on constitutional reform. It is repeatedly said that Labour seats and Conservative seats are different, and that that causes a distortion of the vote. To a certain extent, the noble Baroness might be right about that. There have been times in our past when the party that got the popular vote did not form the Government. That was the case in 1951, when the Labour Government got the greatest proportion of the popular vote. It was also true in 1974, when Ted Heath’s Government got the popular vote. However, I say to her—this is outside any party political view—that I do not think that either our system or the people would long tolerate what was hoving into view in how our elections were working out. If a party won by, say, a clear 5 per cent of the popular vote, but another party could have the most seats in Parliament, it was clear that that distortion had to be addressed. I hope that those in all parts of the House would recognise that. There will be changes over the next 20 years, but I do not think it is very sensible to try to future-proof legislation. My experience is that we should not put trust in psephologists with regard to the impact of changes. I think that psephologists are like economists; they are trained to predict the past. My feeling is that very few of us would put money on a view of what the impact of the reforms will be at the next election. The noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, may well be right that the view of the electorate will sweep aside any advantage that the changes have, if indeed changes occur. I was slightly surprised that Lord Bach quoted what Lord Callaghan said in 1969. As the House will be aware, I see it as part of my role to defend the memory of Lord Callaghan, who was a very distinguished man. In 1969, however, he delayed the Boundary Commission report of that year until after the 1970 election, in what many thought was a crude political manoeuvre—and much good it did us, because we lost the 1970 election.