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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I propose a number of amendments to those proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, on behalf of the Government. At the heart of the noble and learned Lord’s proposals is the introduction of a process which, as he accepts, is not in any sense an inquiry but is intended to enable the public to make representations about any proposals regarding boundary changes with which the hearing is concerned. As I understand the Government’s proposal, it will be open to individuals to make oral representations. A chair will be present to govern the proceedings—presumably to determine the order in which people speak; perhaps to determine whether what they say properly relates to the proposals; and also to determine how long they speak to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to do so. A record will be kept of what is said and that will be put into a public place for people to see. It is not envisaged that there will be any resolution or that the chair will play any part in determining any issues that arise on the wisdom or otherwise of the boundary proposals. However, it is envisaged that the oral hearing process should take place before the conclusion of the written representation period, which I think ends at week 12, with the oral hearing process taking place between weeks five and 10. Therefore, what the Government propose is not in any sense an inquiry and resolution of issues in the form of a report making recommendations to the Boundary Commission; it is simply an opportunity to make oral representations, which are recorded and then made public. Previously, the Government proposed to ban the Boundary Commission from holding public inquiries altogether. They have not moved from that position but they have introduced the public hearing process that I have described. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, expresses his opposition to public inquiries primarily because he is concerned that an open-ended process of public inquiries could cause a fatal delay to the timetable for completing the next boundary review before the intended 2015 general election. He was also concerned that political parties would be too involved. For that reason, the Government have reduced the process to one of only a hearing. It is important to hear what those who have experience of this situation have said. Robin Gray, former chairman of the Boundary Commission for England, said concerning the proposals in the Bill: "““Particularly with this first round … there is a real need for public inquiries particularly to enable those who are interested, political parties and others, to actually argue this through because these are going to be big changes””." Ron Johnston, as the noble and learned Lord fairly said, is normally an opponent of public inquiries. In this area, he said that, "““you are drawing a totally new map with new constituencies and nearly everything will be different ... local people are going to be concerned because suddenly the pattern of representation is going to be very different from what they have been used to for a long time””." Noble Lords will form their own view of the extent to which they have received representations from members of the public about, for example, the Isle of Wight, Cornwall, Anglesey and a number of other issues relating to the proposed boundary changes. Our initial proposals to reinstate public inquiries in their current form did not address the noble and learned Lord’s concerns about the prospect of delay or the fact that there needed to be streamlined public inquiries. We agree with him that there needs to be proper control, as efficient focus as possible and a real focus on real issues. We listened to what the Government said and moved to a new amendment, which allowed for public inquiries but with significant new limitations that would give the Boundary Commissions discretion over whether an inquiry was held. It also placed a cap on the length of time that inquiries could take. During the debate on our amendment, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, who, I am happy to see, is in his place, made an important intervention. He pointed out: "““If there is no provision for an inquiry””—" I interpose that there is no doubt that by ““inquiry”” he meant a proper inquiry, not the hearing process to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, refers, "““I anticipate that there will inevitably be an increase in applications for judicial review””.—[Official Report, 26/1/11; col. 1067.]" The Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, responded favourably to that first debate, which was on our amendments. He said: "““It is not a fundamental principle of the Bill that there should be no oral inquiries””.—[Official Report, 26/1/11; col. 1070.]" Although he did not mention it at that point, when he said ““inquiries””, I think he meant the sort of hearings that he has been referring to. After we had put down our amendment, and after that date, the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, then moved, from the Cross Benches, a revised version of our amendment, which placed even tighter limits on the time that inquiries would be allowed to take and altered the drafting on the discretion to seek to insulate the process from the threat of judicial review. In moving that amendment, the noble Baroness said: "““The question of oral public inquiry remains pivotal ... My own feeling—my instinct, even—is that we need further clarification at this stage from the Minister on whether the Government can accept oral public inquiry in the Bill””." For our part, we responded to the spirit of compromise in which the amendment was moved, and made clear that we were prepared to accept the scheme proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, which was also tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. During the debate on the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, a number of very important contributions were made, including a telling intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who said: "““The Boundary Commission process, including public inquiries, has served this country very well. It has maintained public confidence by a transparent process which has avoided even the suspicion of gerrymandering which blights so many other democratic countries. The Boundary Commission needs to retain some form of discretion to call for an inquiry, at least in those cases where it considers that it is necessary, with appropriate safeguards. I am sure that improvements can be made to the statutory scheme to promote efficiency and reduce delays but there really is no case for abolition””.—[Official Report, 31/1/11; cols. 1217-18.]" The response of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, left me with the impression that the Government were persuaded by the principle. He said: "““We remain very happy to discuss the detail of how these proposals will operate—obviously with the noble Baroness who has proposed her amendment and with the official Opposition””.—[Official Report, 31/1/11; col. 1223.]" As it happens, the amendments were not discussed with the Opposition. The amendment makes progress but is disappointing because of this great hole in its heart. As I have indicated, the sequencing is wrong. The whole purpose of inquiries to which written and oral evidence can be submitted is that they should occur after the initial period of written representation so that they deal with the issues that there may be in relation to a particular boundary dispute. The inquiries, where they are held, should provide an opportunity for representations to be made, but they should also provide an opportunity for those issues to be examined, to hear people respond at the hearing to what others say, to make arguments with or without lawyers as they or the chair of the inquiry sees fit and to reach some kind of conclusion in the form of a report. The government amendment fails to specify who will chair an inquiry—or ““hearing””, as they describe it—and it fails to say how that person’s independence will be guaranteed. Above all, it fails to say whether the chair will have the power to make recommendations. However, the noble and learned Lord has made it clear that that is not his or her role. The one thing that the government amendment is unfailingly clear about is that, although hearings will cover a whole region, they should not last more than two days. In very many cases, that might be sufficient, depending on what the issues are in a region; in others, however, it will not. Our amendments are intended to correct those flaws. In an effort to reach a compromise, we do so while retaining much of the structure included in the government amendment. Our amendment also respects the fundamental concern of the Government, which is to ensure that the inclusion of a right to public inquiries does not prevent a boundary review before 2015. Our amendments to the Government’s scheme cover roughly the same time period in total as the Government's scheme. We reduce the time limit on the initial written consultation phase from 12 to six weeks; stipulate that public inquiries cannot last for more than four months—by that, I do not mean the hearing but the process—after the close of the initial written consultation period; and reduce the period when written representations may be made after any revised proposals from eight to four weeks. Because public inquiries allow for objections and counterproposals to be made, we would remove the four-week secondary consultation period that the government amendment inserts. We propose an identification of the issues for the written representations, an inquiry that must be concluded within four months from the closure for the first written representations, a report with recommendations from the chair or assistant chair of the inquiry and then an opportunity for people to comment on it—thereby ensuring the right for people to make representations and some response to the representations. The right to make representations which then find no conclusion or expression except in the statement of what the boundaries finally are will not be sufficient.