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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House but I agree with every word that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said. I do not think that in all the years we have engaged in exchanges I have ever been able to say that before, but I certainly agree with him now. He offers a warning to this House. I am not sure whether noble Lords will have had a chance to read the debate in the House of Commons. The Minister’s speech was extraordinary because it did not address the substance of the amendment before him. It addressed the idea of having a drop-dead threshold. In fact, he made exactly the same speech as Mr Bill Cash made on his own amendment, which would have introduced a 40 per cent cut-off point. If it did not reach 40 per cent, that would be the end of it. With reference to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, I am very conscious that I am not elected and therefore I do not want to challenge the elected House, the House of Commons. However, this amendment has the effect of leaving it to the House of Commons to decide, and therefore it is very difficult to say that this House should not cajole the other House into putting itself in the driving seat on a major constitutional change. I find it very difficult to understand why my coalition colleagues have not accepted this amendment. I shall not embarrass them by naming them but they have suggested to me that this is because of the coalition agreement. My noble friends Lord Lawson and Lord Lamont have dealt with that point. This amendment does not in any way threaten the coalition agreement, and I think we have had confirmation from the Front Bench that an amendment of this kind is not contrary to the coalition agreement. When I raised this matter with senior colleagues, they said, ““Yes, it’s not in the agreement but it’s what we have agreed with the Liberals””. If we are to have agreements, they have to be transparent, and if our parliamentary democracy is to function, people need to know what agreements have been made behind closed doors and they need to look at the arguments. I asked another senior Liberal strategist—again, I shall not name them in order to avoid embarrassing them—what they thought the turnout might be in London, where there are no elections. All the pressure on the Bill has been focused on having the referendum at the same time as the Scottish parliamentary elections and the local government elections, and I think that that is a bit dodgy. It is an attempt to try to get a higher turnout. That suggests to me that people are worried about the turnout. As my noble friend Lord Lawson said, if you do not know what you think about something complicated, the wise advice is not to participate in it—not to express a view. We are 10 weeks away from this referendum. Have we seen any of the arguments? Do we believe that the electorate have had a chance to consider all the arguments, or that that is likely to happen with Easter intervening? I return to the view that was expressed by this senior Liberal strategist. He said, ““Do you know what the turnout in London might be? It could be 15 to 20 per cent””. That could result—on a turnout of 15 to 20 per cent—in a major constitutional change being made without any consideration of its impact by the House of Commons. Perhaps turnout will be higher in Scotland. I am fed up with people complaining to me about how Scotland gets this benefit and that benefit and that the Scots have too much influence. However, it does not seem very sensible to me to have a referendum where you might have a differential turnout. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, says, ““Of course we all encourage people to turn out””. Why do we encourage people to turn out in elections? We do so because we understand that consent is crucial to the political process. I do not believe that a turnout of 15 to 20 per cent—although the strategist might be wrong—will carry consent. If my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury is talking about restoring trust in the electorate and how the electorate might feel that it was absolutely ridiculous if the turnout were low and the matter had to go back to the House of Commons, I would say to him that this is the same electorate that saw a general election campaign in which, as the noble Lord opposite pointed out, the Liberals as well as the Conservatives campaigned against AV. So if you are not into electoral systems and the minutiae of politics, and I think that most people are not, you might find it a bit bewildering that, within months of a general election, you are being asked to vote in the opposite way from what was suggested by the two coalition parties, and that you are being asked to decide on it in a matter of weeks. This is a very important and perfectly sensible amendment and I am utterly bewildered as to why it has not been accepted. Actually I know why, because I talk to my friends in the House of Commons. There was a time when there were no guillotines on constitutional Bills, but this Bill—my goodness me—has been timetabled very vigorously. There was also a time when we did not have two or three-line Whips on constitutional business. However, as my noble friend pointed out, among those who voted in the other place, there were 25 abstentions and 20 Conservative MPs voting against. Many of those who went through the Lobby ““out of loyalty”” did so because they were being whipped. They are now ringing us up and saying, ““For goodness’ sake, save us in the House of Lords””. It is a pretty pass when the democratically elected Chamber has to rely on this Chamber. I think that that is the answer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. I shall therefore vote for the amendment. I do so with a heavy heart, because I think that the other place should take more account of the arguments and that the Executive should be more accountable. That is the major problem that we have in our country.