Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I respect the noble and learned Lord’s refusal to contemplate laying down the law to the Boundary Commissions on exactly how they should conduct their publicity and consultation. However, it might be helpful to them—it would certainly be helpful to the House—if the noble and learned Lord could be prevailed upon, either now or on Report, to think out aloud, to an extent, on this and to indicate in general terms his expectations as to what would constitute satisfactory publicity and consultation. We live in an age in which there is greatly increased scope for publicity and consultation through new technologies. For example, the use of social networking would be available to the Boundary Commissions if they were intent on communicating with the generality of electors. I hope that they would be. This would be consistent with the principle upon which the Government have agreed that, after all, it would be proper to allow public inquiries to be held. The key principle is that the constitution belongs to the people—not to the Government and certainly not to the boundary commissioners—and we are all the servants of the people. However, it is through the drawing of boundaries and the subsequent election of Members to the House of Commons that the people of this country give their democratic authorisation to the political class, to Members of Parliament, to form a Government and to take decisions on their behalf; and it is through the drawing of constituency boundaries and the holding of further elections that Governments are called to account. This is such a fundamental feature of our constitution that we have taken the view as a House—and the Government have agreed—that the public should have their say not only through written representations but in oral submissions, either uttered by themselves or their representatives, at public inquiries. However, if that process is fully to engage the citizens of this country and be fruitful, it follows that there has to be effective communication between the boundary commissioners and the people. We cannot overemphasise the importance of the spirit in which this is done. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will be able to say that he expects the publicity and consultation to be much more than perfunctory; that he expects it to be full-hearted and thorough. There might be a temptation for the Boundary Commissions to make the process relatively abbreviated—not least because they are being asked to proceed on a more rapid timetable than in the past. It will be a genuine challenge for them to transact all the processes involved in redrawing the boundaries in the timescale that the Government have permitted. It should be possible, but it would more difficult to do it to the timescale set by the Government in the Bill if they are to be as thorough and as generous in their publicity and consultation as we hope they will be. It is important that the Government state that they expect a thorough and genuine consultation. Only if we have that will there be sufficient transparency to enable citizens to have confidence that the boundary commissioners have taken all the relevant considerations into account and have come to a fair and balanced view of them—in particular, that they have balanced the considerations in rule 5 of the new Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act set out in Clause 11. Citizens will need to be confident that those factors—special geographical considerations, local authority boundaries and local ties—have been genuinely and fully taken into account. There will inevitably be scepticism about that because of the difficulty of reconciling a proper weighting of those considerations with the imperative—on which, I fear, the Government still insist—that there has to be the rigid quota of 76,000 electors per constituency, with only a small leeway of 5 per cent either side, a point to which by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours drew attention. Given the difficulty that there will be in reconciling and balancing these various factors, it is all the more important that there is effective communication with our citizens so that they have confidence in this process. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will be able to indicate now, in general terms, that that is the spirit and the practice that he would expect from the Boundary Commissions. Perhaps when we come to this issue again on Report and have the benefit of seeing the Government’s amendment and their redrafting of Clause 12, this consideration and requirement will be clearly incorporated into it.