Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I am now faced with a rather impossible task. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, who is about to go and have a lie down—fortunately, I think, given the state of his temper—has already denounced me for time wasting before I have got to my feet. Things are a little difficult. I hope before he goes I will not have him banging on the Dispatch Box, so I will try to introduce some new arguments into this case. My noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey will be relieved to know that this is very much a probing amendment and I tabled it in the hope that we could have a debate about the duties and responsibilities of a Member of Parliament and, as my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport amply demonstrated in the debate on the last amendment, how the role of a Member of Parliament has changed enormously over the years. I hope to be able to do so without provoking a phone call from Trimble junior about any waffling from this side of the House. I never went to university myself but to find students these days at 3.42 in the morning watching the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill indicates to me that a university education is not all that it is cracked up to be. Certainly I would find something better to do if I were in their position. In 1974 I was elected to the other place for the then new constituency of West Bromwich East—a constituency created by the Boundary Commission, bearing in mind the social conditions in West Bromwich at that time because that is what Boundary Commissions did and do, which is why there has been so much concern on this side of your Lordships’ House about the future and particularly about the lack of local inquiries when new boundaries are produced, which is inherent in this Bill. During my early years as a Member of the other place—coincidentally, although I see the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has left the Front Bench now—I shared the use of a secretary with a man called Andrew Bennett who represented Stockport North. In those days, it was sufficient for us to employ a part-time secretary who would come in on two evenings a week to jointly do our constituency work. When I left the other place in 2001, I employed two full-time staff and one part-timer. That was before the onset of the internet. I did not actually know how to plug a computer in when I was a Member of the House of Commons—I had somebody to do all that sort of thing for me. I found some difficulty in being transported to your Lordships’ House as I was expected to do all that sort of thing myself. I managed to achieve that much and I can cope just about with the internet but my successor in the other place can get 5,000 e-mails a week. Many of the people, if they e-mail him and do not get an instant response—within, say, 24 hours—will denounce him in the local paper for failing to take any notice of his constituents. It is a vastly different world from that I experienced 37 years ago when I was first elected. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who is replying to this debate, will do so with regard to the seriousness with which I am putting these points. One of the reasons that I have tabled this amendment is that the position, duties and workload of a Member of Parliament are much greater now than in the days just referred to. Of course it could be argued—it probably will be argued from the government Front Bench—that secretarial facilities in the other place are much better than they were all those years ago, and if necessary those secretarial facilities could be increased to meet that burgeoning workload. My noble friend Lord Howarth mentioned the number of immigration cases. It will not come as any surprise to him if I say, as someone who represented West Bromwich, that they provided a considerable proportion of my workload as a constituency Member of Parliament. Indeed, there is no reason to suppose that that situation has changed since I left the other place. Again, noble Lords will appreciate that immigration matters in particular are extraordinarily time consuming. It is not a question of a simple housing repair; there are plenty of those cases as well of course. Some of my colleagues in the other place, much braver than I, said ““Well, if someone comes to you with a housing case why don’t you refer them to your local councillors?””. I had a majority of 288 at one stage, so I was not about to alienate any more people than was absolutely necessary. I dealt with them myself at that time. Immigration cases in particular were, and are, extraordinarily complicated, and it might easily be argued that we could increase secretarial allowances for Members of Parliament in order for them to meet that ever burgeoning workload. The newspapers are reporting only this week on the salaries of Members of Parliament. It is easier perhaps for us at this end of the building to defend a proper salary for a Member of Parliament. Setting up a body to take the question of Members’ salaries out of the Chamber of the other place and place it in the hands of an independent body would, it was said at the time by Harriet Harman and by other people, make the award of an increase for Members of Parliament much easier to accept. ““Oh, yes””, I said at the time, ““I will believe that when I see it””. I go back to Harold Wilson’s days. He gave me my first job as a junior Whip. He said. ““At least you get a pay rise””. I think it was about £3,000 a year that we earned back in the 1970s. I had no doubts that, when this independent body was set up, the first time it awarded Members of Parliament a pay rise the Prime Minister of the day, regardless of his political view, would say, ““It’s the wrong time””. Well, I have been around this building for nearly 40 years. I have never known the right time for Members of Parliament to get a pay rise. Certainly it will be argued—I expect it to be argued by the government Front Bench—that, given the current circumstances, it is an inappropriate time to award the £1,000 a year that this independent body has recommended. Does anyone seriously think on either side of the Chamber that it will be possible to give Members of Parliament adequate facilities to do the extra constituency workload that they have at present? Does anyone think that the Daily Mail would not say, ““These people are costing us X thousands of pounds a year””? Being a Member of Parliament in the other place is the only job I have ever known where your secretary’s salary and her typewriter or computer is added to your salary as far as the newspapers are concerned. That is never going to change. I say in all seriousness to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who is going to reply to this debate, that I hope that the Government will look at the numbers of Members of Parliament and they will move away from this belief that 600 is the optimum figure. We have never had an explanation, after all this time and after all this debate on the Bill, how that figure has been arrived at. I hope that the Minister will agree that to reduce the numbers of Members of the other place, despite the problems and workload in a modern society, is nonsense. I do not want to repeat anything that was said previously on the debate as to whether this should be 600, 640 or 650. I just ask the Minister, when he responds, to bear in mind that it is not popular to defend Members of the other place, but regardless of political party the vast majority of them are, in my experience, hard working. To reduce their numbers at present, given the social problems facing this country, given the economic situation facing this country, and given the increased workload for all of them, regardless of what part of the country they represent, would be absolute folly. I hope that the Minister will reply in the same spirit with which I have moved this amendment and accept that there are sincere concerns—I am sure on both sides of your Lordships’ House, but certainly on this side of the House—about the future. We believe that the present number—650—is about right and we ought to keep it at that. I beg to move.