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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I apprehend that the House will not want me to rehearse the merits of the substantive amendment to Clause 11 and respond to the criticisms of it. Your Lordships heard that debate last week. It was a very full debate and the House voted by a healthy majority to accept the amendments. I listened to the debate yesterday afternoon in the other place. All the points that were made by the Minister, Mr Mark Harper, and the points that were made again today by the noble and learned Lord were ones that I sought to address and answer in the debate last week. I will not repeat any of that. Nothing new was put forward yesterday or this afternoon. I should also mention—it was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, in the debate earlier today—that on the Commons consideration of the Lords amendment yesterday the time for debate on this issue was limited to one hour. Of that one hour, the Minister, Mr Mark Harper, spoke for almost 40 minutes. Admittedly, there were interruptions during that time, but that is what happened. The actual debate from other Members of the other place—on what we all agree is an important constitutional issue and on which this House has expressed a very clear view—lasted 20 minutes. I take the view—other noble Lords will take their own views—that this is highly relevant to the question of whether or not this House ought to ask the other place to look again, and to look again seriously, at this issue. Before I turn to the two points that I want to make, I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney—I am sorry that he is not in his place—that he might, on reflection, consider that he was a little unfair to the Deputy Prime Minister in the debate this morning. I was one of the Cross-Benchers invited to meet Mr Clegg to discuss the substance of my amendment. I very much welcomed that and the opportunity that I have had throughout our consideration of this Bill to discuss these matters with the noble and learned Lord and with the Bill team. I thank them for the exchanges that we have had. I understood the invitation from Mr Clegg to be a recognition—and a very proper recognition—that on the Cross Benches we put forward amendments when we think it appropriate. Each one of us considers them on their individual merits; each one of us, without being whipped, votes as we think is appropriate on that particular matter. I put on record our gratitude—I am sure that I am not the only Cross-Bencher who thinks in this way—to the Deputy Prime Minister for taking the time and trouble to meet with us. It is not appropriate for him to be criticised for doing that. There are two substantial points that I want to make on why this House should ask the other place to think again. The first is that this amendment arises in the context of a constitutional Bill. That was the point made in the debate this morning by the noble Lord, Lord Lawson. The clause that we are now considering regulates the arrangements that govern the composition of the other place. This is a vital constitutional question. On such a question, this House, with its accumulated wisdom and experience, has a special responsibility to address the merits of legislative proposals. Indeed, it might be said that this House enjoys an advantage over the other place in that we have a broader perspective, which the other place inevitably lacks in relation to its own composition. This is not, I emphasise, any criticism whatever of the Members of the other place. It is to suggest to your Lordships that the rules governing the composition of the other place are of such constitutional importance that they cannot be left solely to the judgment of the other place, in the sense that, as soon as the other place disagrees with us, we in this House immediately retreat. The other point is that there is a particular reason why this House should be unwilling to give way on this constitutional issue when this House was not persuaded last week of the Government’s argument on its merits. This Bill was heavily criticised by your Lordships’ Constitution Committee—an all-party committee—for the absence of pre-legislative scrutiny and for the lack of public consultation on issues of fundamental constitutional importance. It was perhaps the strongest criticism of a Bill seen in recent years from a Select Committee. One of the topics that concerned your Lordships’ Constitution Committee—I should declare that I am a member of that committee—was the electoral quota. Paragraph 47 of the Constitution Committee’s report said: "““Pre-legislative scrutiny and public consultation would have enabled a better assessment of whether the new rules as to equalisation are overly rigid””." I understand and respect the view of the Government that, in the first year of a new Parliament, it is inevitable that measures will be brought forward without there having been an opportunity for pre-legislative scrutiny and for detailed, or any, public consultation. But if the Government choose to bring forward a Bill of constitutional importance without such prior scrutiny and without such consultation, the Government cannot complain if the scrutiny that is then conducted in this House leads to improvements in the Bill that this House is reluctant to abandon as soon as the other place expresses disagreement with it. I should also mention that last Wednesday, 9 February, the chairman of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee —the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, whom I am pleased to see in her place—wrote to the Minister in the other place, Mr Mark Harper. She pointed out that three months after the publication of the Constitution Committee’s report—it was published on 10 November 2010—the Government had yet to respond to it, despite a government commitment to produce responses to Select Committee reports within two months. She stated in her letter: ““This is not acceptable””. The Government did publish its response to the report on Monday 14 February, two days ago—far too late in consideration of the Bill to be of any value. I have also seen a letter dated 14 February—Monday—from Mr Graham Allen, the chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the other place. His letter is again to Mr Mark Harper, the Minister, and points out that his committee published its report on the Bill—again, a highly critical report—on 7 October 2010. His committee is still waiting—or at least it was on Monday—for a government response, four months later, when Parliament is about to conclude its assessment of a Bill of constitutional significance. Mr Allen observed that one might draw the conclusion that the Government had simply not complied with their duties to Parliament. I respectfully suggest that all that is quite extraordinary and highly relevant to whether, on a Bill and an issue of constitutional significance, this House ought respectfully and politely—but insistently—to say to the other place, ““You really need to look again, properly and in detail, at the views of this House””. I beg to move.