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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, perhaps I may make a wholly reasonable response to noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Williamson, and commend them on the way in which they have put forward their amendment. I entirely accept the spirit in which it has been proposed. We have had some pretty unhappy times in past days in this House. I have not yet spoken on the Bill, but I felt that we had reached the moment when I wanted to make a contribution. I am one of the Members of this House who has had his boundaries changed often enough in his earlier life. It is not totally world shattering; it happens; there have to be adjustments. There has sometimes been rather too much suggestion that it is almost a criminal offence to change some constituency boundaries. I do not regard it in that way. It is a necessary move. With population changes and demographic growth, there is an obvious need at times for boundaries to change. As noble Lords said, the amendment is a compromise. It is not unfair to say—I do not wish to misrepresent the noble Lords—that it might have been conceived at a moment when it appeared that there was deadlock in this House and when we were going through a very unhappy period. I think and hope that the House is now conducting itself in a way that many of us hoped for, where there is reasonable debate and where there are then proper votes on which—as is clearly the Government’s point of view—you win some and you lose some. That is surely what democratic debate is about. I come to this part of the Bill with two considerations. I believe that there must be more equal constituencies. I do not know whether anyone in this House would challenge the fact that there are serious discrepancies in the size of constituencies that must be put right. I believe also that that must be achieved by 2015. I was very struck by a comment by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who said in moving the opening amendment yesterday: "““If we took no action, the next boundary review may not take effect until 2020. This would mean that in 2018 there will be electors who reach voting age and register to vote who will not even have been born when the basis of the pattern of representation in the Commons was determined””.—[Official Report, 8/2/11; col. 128.]" We all know that it is a very constipated and far too slow a process. Does the amendment help? Is it making constituencies more equal or less equal? There is only one answer to that. At the moment, the Government are proposing a spread of 10 per cent. This amendment proposes a spread of 15 per cent, which would allow for the possibility of less equal constituencies. I admired enormously the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—I hope that that does not sound patronising—when he said that the knock-on effect of moving from 10 per cent to 15 per cent, meaning that other constituencies might have to have more or less, is not different in principle. Of course, he is right, but it is rather different in quantum. I think the noble Lord will understand that point as well. This amendment allows the possibility of less equality, so I cannot support it on that ground. Another thing that concerns me, which the noble Lord dealt with fairly and frankly, is exceptional circumstances and the issue of judicial review. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, with his great experience, advised the House exactly how a judge would handle circumstances that came in front of him. He appeared to give a guarantee that the court would also deal with it extremely promptly and speedily. I do not know that I absolutely share that confidence in every case, given what has happened in some of the circumstances. I thought that that might be generally true, but if the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, with his skill, is handling the case on front of that judge, I am not sure that very interesting further legal arguments, or exceptional circumstances of one sort or another that someone has discovered but that have not been taken fully into account, would not be found, which would mean that the matter would have to be further delayed. That is my point, because it would be outrageous if we could not have proper, more equal boundaries by 2015. This amendment opens up the certainty of less equality and the possibility of further opportunities for delay. I put it no higher than that. Although I say this, I do not want in any way to suggest that I do not appreciate very much the leadership of the Cross Benchers, the Convenor, and her colleagues in what was clearly a difficult situation and in trying to find a way forward by the House. I think that circumstances in the House have now changed and that the House should take a straight decision on this. I know that many people were worried that we were heading towards a really serious breach of convention in a timetable Motion. Perhaps I may presume to say that another convention might be under threat. We all respect the Cross Benchers for the individual independence of mind and experience that they bring to this House. The suggestion that there should be a Cross-Bench position on this is not the sort of House that I expected to find.