My Lords, I suspect that I am not the only Member of this House who finds this a thoroughly unattractive debate. I suspect that there may be many noble Lords on the other side of the House whose opinions I respect who will very much regret that we find ourselves in this position.
I say that for this reason. I was particularly struck because we started with a point about the inadmissibility of the amendment. It was interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Hart of Chilton, who has long service in this House and who must have worked closely with the clerks in his time in other capacities here, did not make any reference—as was pointed out in a number of interventions—to the desirability normally of respecting the view of the clerks. He just soldiered straight on, without dealing with that argument or, as far as I could see, with any respect for the basic issue regarding the Companion and the importance normally of respecting it.
I know that we have the advantage of a legal opinion from a QC, commissioned by the Labour Chief Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, which has been made available to the House. It of course gives a clear indication as to part of the motivation behind what we are facing here today. However, in looking at that legal opinion—and I am certainly not a lawyer—one point struck me regarding the issue of scope. What the amendment does is basically de-gut an Act that has very recently gone through this House and been approved by both Houses.
The point that I would simply make is that when the coalition put forward its proposals for these parliamentary Sessions, there were two Bills. The first dealt exclusively with parliamentary voting systems and constituencies—interestingly enough, the Parliamentary Voting Systems and Constituencies Bill. The first half of the Bill was to provide for a condition of the coalition, the AV referendum on parliamentary voting systems. The second half was to deal exclusively with constituencies. At the same time, a separate Bill was proposed to deal with electoral registration and administration. The Bills were distinct and separate.
There might be an argument that the amendment was perfectly acceptable to be introduced if the other matter had not just been dealt with by your Lordships and the other place as conclusively as was the case in the carrying of the Parliamentary Voting Systems and Constituencies Act. It is not as though the amendment
is some minor technical addition to what was previously proposed. This is a major de-gutting of the previous legislation, enshrined in Part 2 of that Act.
I respect entirely the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, has, very properly, made absolutely clear that this is a matter finally for the House to decide. I would add to that—and I know that she will accept this—that it is a responsibility that this House must take very seriously indeed and not treat lightly, as though it were a matter for political advantage on this occasion.
My second point relates to the guts of the amendment, which is to delay the boundary review. I do not know whether anyone in this House any longer believes that there is not gross unfairness in the present parliamentary boundaries. We have just fought one election in 2010 on boundaries based on data that were 10 years old. If the amendment stands, we will go into the next election with data that are manifestly older still. That is a certainty.
I was struck partly because a colleague, Lord Maples, whose absence from this House we much regret, showed considerable interest in this subject. I had not realised that he introduced a 10-minute rule Bill to the House of Commons five years ago to equalise the size of parliamentary constituencies. He said in his speech in this House that he wanted to call it, “A Bill to abolish rotten boroughs”, but the clerks would not let him. Perhaps they thought that that was going a bit over the top. However, he said that in 2005, the smallest constituency had 21,000 voters and the largest had 107,000; and that one Member of Parliament got elected on 6,000 votes—lucky chap—when it took someone else 32,000 votes to get elected. Those of us who had to fight for every one of those 32,000 votes knows what it feels like. Looking at the registers and the disparity between constituencies, one sees that in the last election when new boundaries were introduced on old data, there was a discrepancy of 18,000 between Banbury and Sheffield Brightside.
It is against that background that I simply say that of course there have been sincere speeches about the importance of keeping the registers absolutely up to date and making sure that the new arrangements being introduced are totally incorporated before there can be any idea of changing the constituency boundaries. However, the intervention of my noble friend Lord Naseby certainly bears out what I and anyone who has stood for election know very well—that the registers are never right. People are always missing from them. No one knows at this stage to what extent these changes will substantially alter constituencies, and it may be that the changes are not as big, but it is certain that everyone who votes for the amendment is determining that the unfairness, which has been generally recognised, published and accepted, will be maintained. This unelected House will then have determined and ensured that some votes in those constituencies will be worth more than others, and that the unfairness that existed in the 2010 election is even worse next time. What a position for this House to take. In the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, it is very much a decision for this House, and I hope that it will take that decision very seriously indeed.