My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that build-up. I will speak to Amendment 7 in my name and those of my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Randall and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem. Like the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Cormack, it puts a time limit on the interval between the submission of the reports by the Boundary Commissions and the order being laid before Parliament. My noble friend has outbid me by shortening my proposed interval of three months to six weeks, but otherwise the objective is the same; six weeks might be too tight. Amendment 9 is a consequential one, applying the same time limit to Clause 3, which deals with the statement of modifications.
The objective of the amendment is to deliver the Minister’s commitment in his Second Reading speech that,
“the recommendations of the Boundary Commissions, developed through the meticulous and consultative process I have described, should be implemented without political influence or interference”.
In the next paragraph of his speech, my noble friend reinforced the point by saying that,
“the purpose of this measure is straightforward: to bring certainty and confidence to the citizen and the elector that updated constituencies will be implemented without interference and further delay.”—[Official Report, 27/7/20; col. 38.]
My noble friend’s point about delay is apt, as we have seen two years pass after the Government got the last recommendations in 2018 and there is still no Order in Council. Any future Government could do the same.
I know that many noble Lords want Parliament to have the final say, and we have had that debate. Crucially, my amendment is neutral on that issue. Indeed, the amendment is essential to those who want Parliament to have the final say because, unless the Government lay the order, there can be no debate or vote in Parliament. So those hostile to automaticity should support this bridge-building amendment. I should say at this stage that I am grateful to the Minister and his officials for two virtual meetings, one in July and one at the end of last week. They were courtesy itself in explaining the practical problems with time limits, but I have not so far been persuaded: hence the amendment.
I will not repeat what I said at Second Reading, when I gave two examples of political interference in the implementation of Boundary Commission recommendations, one in 1969—to which my noble friend the Minister has just referred—and the other following the report in 2018. In a nutshell, without a time limit, the objective of the Bill could be neutralised. I will come later to the argument about “as soon as practicable” being liable to challenge in the courts if the Government delayed.
After Second Reading, I contacted the Electoral Commission, whose remit includes promoting public confidence in the democratic process and ensuring its integrity. I enclosed a copy of my Second Reading speech and asked for its views. This was the response:
“The Commission has not made any comments in regards to this legislation, as it doesn’t directly relate to the administration of elections or the regulation of political finance. However, we can see how greater clarity about the timescales for implementing any recommendations from the Boundary Committees would probably be helpful for Electoral Registration Officers, Returning Officers and campaigners ahead of any election that will use the new boundaries, so that they can confirm their plans in good time.”
I think it is fair to say from that that the Electoral Commission supports the principle of the amendment. I have permission to quote the email.
I also contacted the Boundary Commission, drawing attention to my amendment and asking what the length of time had been between receipt of reports by the Government and the laying of Orders in Council. I emailed them at 18:52 on 30 July. At 21:17 the same day, the acting secretary to the Commission, Tony Bellringer, replied. I mention him by name because of the promptness and detail of his reply, long past
any reasonable working hours. I hope that the Committee will bear with me if I quote from his reply:
“The last General Review to be implemented … was the Fifth General Review which reported to Government on 31 October 2006. The Order to implement the recommendations that it contained was subsequently made on 13 June 2007. The report of the Fourth General Review was dated 12 April 1995 and the subsequent Order to implement was made on 28 June 1995. The report of the Third General Review was dated 1 February 1983 and the subsequent Order to implement its recommendations was made on 16 March 1983. As you will probably be aware, these Orders are actually laid in draft and subject to debate in both Houses, under the draft affirmative procedure, so the date of laying the draft of the orders will have been some time in advance of the “Made” date. (In other words, the gap is even shorter than the dates I have just given.) Unfortunately we do not have records of when the Government actually laid the draft Orders in each case. Either the Government itself or the Parliamentary authorities may possibly retain the records.”
So I went to the Library and am most grateful to Edward Scott for the following information about the gap between report and the order being laid, rather than made, as this is the time necessary to check the recommendations. The first periodic review for England was submitted on 10 November 1954, and the order was laid eight days later, on 18 November. The second periodic review was in 1969, when the unhappy sequence of events already referred to took place, so it is not representative. The third periodic review for England was submitted on 1 February 1983 and the order laid on 14 February, 13 days later. The fourth review for England was submitted on 12 April 1995 and the order laid 55 days later on 20 June. The fifth review took longer. It was submitted on 31 October 2006 and laid 118 days later—just outside my three months. The one for Scotland was submitted on 30 November 2004—perhaps that was what the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes referred to—and the order was laid 14 days later on 14 December. It is not clear why the fifth report took longer, because the legislation was the same.
So it is not at all clear why an open-ended commitment is necessary. It is worth noting that all the other processes in the Bill have time limits attached to them. The Boundary Commission, local authorities, political parties and individual electors all have time constraints on their involvement, some tighter than at the moment. The only party not subject to time constraints are the Government. My noble friend Lord Hayward, psephologist in residence, may develop this point.
I will now deal with my noble friend the Minister’s response at Second Reading. In his wind-up speech, he chose his words carefully in responding to my suggestion. Noble Lords will have their own unhappy experiences of their amendments being unacceptable to Ministers. What my noble friend said was the mildest possible put-down:
“We are not minded to go in that direction.”
I put that in the same category as that well-known ministerial response: “We have no current plans”, often a precursor to a change in policy.
My noble friend had two arguments. The first was that the current words were needed
“purely in order to maintain some flexibility for the necessary work in preparing the draft boundary order and the associated order that designates the returning officer for each newly drawn
constituency. Time would be needed to allow for this preparatory work and setting hard time limits can cause practical difficulties down the line.”
The second argument was:
“Any Government who sought to drag their heels over the submission of a draft Order in Council would be at risk of legal challenge. With something as high profile as a boundary review, it seems likely that the move to challenge would be swift.”.—[Official Report, 27/7/20; col. 94.]
So far as the first argument is concerned, I will quote from an article published by the LSE on 1 May 2019 by Ron Johnston, professor in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol; Charles Pattie, professor of politics at the University of Sheffield; and David Rossiter, an independent researcher. This is an extract.
“The Minister was then asked about progress on the preparation and tabling of Orders in Council to implement the Boundary Commissions’ recommendations.”
They quote the Minister’s reply—not this Minister, but a Minister in the other place—that
“once the orders are prepared, they are ready to go before the House. It is a complex motion, given that it covers every street and house in the United Kingdom, in terms of ensuring that they are appropriately represented in this place. It will be submitted in due course.”
Of course it was not, but this is what the academics say about this alibi:
“This is an odd statement … The Parliamentary Constituencies Order (England) 2007 is a lengthy document but all but two pages comprise a schedule listing the new constituencies and their component wards. That list was in the Commission’s report and could have been compiled and checked relatively quickly. The same is the case with the Commissions’ reports delivered in 2018; it is difficult to understand why Orders implementing the four sets of recommendations could not have been prepared and tabled within weeks of delivery.”
My amendment allows three months.
I have the relevant two pages of the Parliamentary Constituencies (England) Order 2007. It is 27 lines: Citation and commencement; Parliamentary constituencies in England—which refers to the Schedule from the Boundary Commission; Electoral registers; and Revocation. There would be no difficulty in drafting that in a day. As for checking the work of the Boundary Commission for England, its work and decisions would have been trawled over by the political parties—all only too anxious to spot inaccuracies—during the process set out in the Bill. Again, my noble friend Lord Hayward might amplify this point.
I will make one related point: it is not the case that when the report lands on the Government’s desk its contents are a total surprise. The vast majority of the recommendations will have been put to bed months before, with only a few cases going to the final stage. There is ample time for the department to scrutinise the bulk of the work if it wanted to before getting the report.
As to my noble friend’s second point about legal challenge, I make two brief points. First, in the two years since the last recommendations were submitted, there has been no legal challenge, despite it being manifestly obvious that there has been ample time to lay the orders. Why was progress not made? It was because the Government did not want progress to
be made. That is exactly the sort of interference that the Minister has made clear it is the object of the Bill to prevent. Secondly, if that is the long-stop, it does confidence in our democratic system no credit if the Government have to be dragged through the court to deliver the orders, with legal arguments as to whether or not it was reasonable and practicable so to do. It is far better to have the clarity of a time limit in primary legislation as with the rest of the Bill. Finally, I ask my noble friend to think again about this between now and Report and see whether there is the possibility of some movement in the Government’s position at Second Reading.
4.45 pm