Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, mine is the second amendment in this group, and under normal circumstances I would have spoken second. However, I was so excited to see the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, stand up—indeed, I can put it this way, thus seeing the whole of the Liberal Benches standing up—that I sat down to recover. I should say that there has been absolutely no collusion between me and my noble friend. To me it is obvious that the relationship between the two Houses when discussing the size of the Commons, and we all know about the size of this House, is a very important subject for debate. We are talking essentially about the relationship between the two Houses, and that lies at the heart of our constitution. I am pleased that at least I can claim that we are having this debate in daylight hours. That is by accident rather than by design, but it is a matter worthy of proper consideration by this House, and I am sorry that so few seem to be interested in discussing it. It is probably noteworthy to remark that through most of the night in our discussions about the relationship between the two Houses, we have been talking about a cull of 50 Members of Parliament. The world knows already, because it has been reported in a number of newspapers, that while we were discussing a matter of crucial importance to the House of Commons, beds were being arranged in this House so that Members of the House of Lords, while their House was debating a cull of Members of the House of Commons, could rest peacefully asleep. I think that that is an insult to the other House and that if the reverse were to apply so that beds were provided in the House of Commons while they were debating our future, and most of the Commons was asleep, we would quite properly have something to say about it, and indeed it would have been our duty to do so. I mention that not just in passing because it says something about how flippantly this House is considering a crucial matter affecting the future of the House of Commons. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, will doubtless say that my amendment is inadequate and badly drafted. I freely admit that, but I tried hard to find a proper form of words that would be in order and which said what I want to say, which is simply that it really is a bizarre set of circumstances that the elected House of Commons—the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is very keen on an elected House of Lords—is to be reduced from 650 to 600 while simultaneously there is a huge increase in the number of unelected Members of the House of Lords. To give the House the figures so that at least they are on the record, the Commons is to be reduced by 50 to give it a membership of 600, but since the general election this House has had new Members announced to the tune of 117, with the current size of this place at 792. So, on this Government’s watch we are planning to take 50 Members out of the House of Commons and already—each day the number increases—there are 792 Members of this House. Any objective observer would say that that is an absolutely bizarre state of affairs. I should like the Leader of the House to make this point to Nick Clegg, who I understand is the mastermind behind a lot of these constitutional reforms. More pertinently, however, he has stated repeatedly in what is his—I am sure to be regretted—phrase that this is the greatest reform since 1832, that the three Bills comprising this one, which will reduce the size of the House of Commons and provide for a referendum, the next one which will provide for fixed-term Parliaments, and the one after which will provide for reform of this House, are all ingeniously and brilliantly interrelated. Can someone explain to me the interrelationship between reducing the elected House by 50 and increasing the appointed House by 117 in a matter of nine months? It is beyond me, but there are, no doubt, bigger brains than mine working these things out in the depths of the Constitution Unit under the controlling guidance of Mr Nick Clegg. It is not just me; this House is beginning to recognise that it is too big. The Hunt report, if I can call it that, which was set up by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is entitled Members Leaving the House. It is quite clear that it is too big and that we have to find mechanisms for reducing the size. I shall read paragraph 67 of this report by an all-party Committee, which is relevant to this amendment: "““Whilst we cannot recommend that there should be a moratorium on new appointments to the House — since, while the purpose of the House is to provide expertise, we must ensure that that expertise is refreshed and kept up to date — we do urge that restraint should be exercised by all concerned””—" that really means the Government— "““in the recommendation of new appointments to the House, until such time as debate over the size of membership is conclusively determined””." That is a Committee of this House saying that restraint should be exercised so far as new Members are concerned. I have already said that we have had 117 new Members since the general election, but it is going to get worse, or better, whichever your view of this is, because of this document, which will be enshrined in constitutional history The Coalition: our programme for government—I love it. As every day goes past, the inadequacy of this document becomes clearer, but we regard it as some sort of a statement of objectives and intent as things stand at the moment. In the section dealing with constitutional reform, the coalition document states that it is going to reform the House of Lords and that: "““In the interim, Lords appointments will be made with the objective of creating a second chamber that is reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election””." I would like the Leader of the House, to tell us when he winds up how many more Peers he thinks will be required in order to do what the coalition document says and what the split between the various political parties will be. Can I suggest that it would make his life simpler if instead of basing it on the results of the previous general election, he bases it on the figures that we are being given by current opinion polls, which suggest that there are far too many Liberal Peers in this House? That might be a consideration that he might look at. The reason why I think this is an important point in relation to my amendment is that one of the consequences of the imbalance between the sizes of the two Houses is that it is having a dramatic effect on the political balance in this House now, as is the mere fact of the coalition, which alters the whole way in which this House is likely to operate. I think we have seen that demonstrated this past 24 hours or so. The Government are in control of both Houses, which has not happened in all the time that I have been in this House, and it was never envisaged that it would ever happen again. At present, the Government have 40 per cent of the votes in this House, including the Cross Benchers. That was the figure that I was able to get from the Library figures for a week last Monday. As your Lordships will know, they are published on a regular basis. We have had 14 new Peers since we started debating Part 2 of the Bill last Monday, and I think we are expecting some more later today, provided that this day’s work completes before they are due to be introduced. The political balance is changing all the time to the Government’s advantage. As I have already said, we are looking at reform in the round, or should be, if we follow Nick Clegg’s dictum. That is a factor that needs to be considered if this House is to continue as a revising Chamber. I shall conclude with one thought about a factor still not considered properly between the two Houses.