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Norwich and Norfolk (Structural Changes) Order 2010

My Lords, the much quoted Merits Committee drew our attention to the intention to cancel forthcoming council elections in the area. Cancelling elections at very short notice is something of which people should always be very suspicious and it is about this principle that I wish to speak. In the normal course of events, nominations for local elections in Norwich and Exeter would close at noon on 8 April. Failing tonight to approve the amendment from my noble friend Lord Tope will mean that this House is allowing the Government to halt the elections that those of us who are involved in campaigns and elections would know are in many respects already under way. We can only assume that the Government are fearful of the outcome of those elections. The Minister said that he wants to "preserve the integrity of the democratic process". Halting elections on the grounds that you may do badly in them is not democratic and should not be supported. Nor should it be something about which you only express regret. As my noble friend Lord Tope said, at the end of April the High Court action may well result in these orders being declared unlawful and being overturned. But by that stage, it will be too late to reinstate the local elections that would have given local voters their say in the running of these two councils for the first time in two years. It seems to me that there is no good reason for denying local voters the chance to have their say on how their councils are run over the next 12 months. This, of course, is exactly the argument that noble Lords opposite would have made when the Greater London Council was abolished by the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, and the Conservatives in the 1980s, and the last planned round of elections to the Greater London Council were halted. Labour argued that those elections should have gone ahead, that people should have had their say and that it was an abuse of power simply to abolish planned elections in this way. The Minister tonight may argue exactly the opposite case. He suggests that there is no point in holding local elections for Norwich and Exeter if the nature of those councils may change in 12 months’ time. However, that is a very weak argument in democratic terms. First, we do not know the outcome of the legal proceedings at the end of April; and, secondly, we do not know the outcome of the general election. So if these orders are approved tonight, all that they are guaranteed to achieve is the sudden halting of local elections that are planned and, in many senses, under way. In response to this, there is simply no point in expressing "regret" about the Government’s plan. Earlier, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, quoted the Eastern Daily Press; I wonder whether she has read the Eastern Daily Press today, which states that, ""the government presses on, fingers in its ears and blinkers on. We feel this is too important an issue for the peers, suddenly to come over all coy. Supporting a ‘motion of regret’ is not enough"." It is right to say that this is ill-conceived legislation, and we should vote accordingly. The Western Morning News this morning argues that Ministers should, "listen more carefully". Its editorial states: ""It is hard not to say the critics of this process are right that the Government is putting political ambition above the needs of both the city of Exeter and greater Devon"." There may be some who are wondering when it is right to oppose rather than regret government orders. It must be right to vote against government orders when there is a clear abuse of process as so clearly outlined in this debate. I had strong support from the Conservative Benches when the Government tried, in my view, to fiddle the election rules for the election of the first Mayor of London, and also very strong support when the Government forced through compulsory postal voting in the local and European elections in 2004. We thought then that there was a clear abuse of process and that it was right to vote against the Government. Those with longer memories than mine may also recall the stance taken by this House in 1969 when an outgoing Labour Government attempted to influence the Boundary Commission process to their own advantage just prior to the 1970 general election. That was an abuse of process. When a process is fundamentally wrong and anti-democratic, we should say no to it, not just regret it.