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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I begin by saying how much I admire the ability of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, to make another most interesting and persuasive speech without repeating the speech in any great detail that he made on the previous occasion. I respect that. He said that the amendment that we discussed on Report was carried by a healthy majority; I point out that it was a quarter of the majority carried after the debate that we have just had, so I do not know what we would describe that as. It is important to remember where we are. I would like to think that the whole of this noble House was agreed on two points: that seats should be as equal as possible, and that a more equal distribution should be in place by 2015. Some people on the opposition Benches—certainly not the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and his colleagues—may be keen not to see more equal distribution by 2015; they must speak for themselves. However, it is certainly the objective. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, challenged this point when I made it previously: his amendment allows for less equality than presently proposed by the Government. Maybe some noble Lords, including those on the Benches opposite, were not quite aware of what the Government had proposed. I do not agree with where the Government started from. They proposed 10 per cent; I had some heckling when I mentioned that last time, because people did not realise—they thought that it was 5 per cent, but of course it is 5 per cent either way, a 10 per cent spread. The amendment proposes 15 per cent. I think that 10 per cent is too high. I recognise that the Government realised that there had to be a compromise when they drew up the Bill—that some allowance had to be made for latitude by the Boundary Commission in its work. The amendment is a compromise on a compromise, because moving to a 15 per cent spread means a difference of perhaps 12,000 people between different constituencies. That is too great. That is my first point. My second is on the other thing done by the amendments on which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is inviting the House to insist. He effectively conceded that 15 per cent was a big variation, so he covered himself by inserting the fact that it should be used only in exceptional circumstances. As was recognised by certain noble and learned Lords, exceptional circumstances then allow further consideration and opportunity for challenge and further chance of judicial review. That is why the amendment fails my second test by making it more likely to mean that we do not get a new and fairer electoral arrangement by 2015. In the light of today’s previous debate, we might have expected what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, then said when he set this up as a great constitutional issue. I do not want to discuss the previous debate—I did not speak in that—and I understand entirely why the arguments might be made in this case. However, surely the purpose of our electoral system—which we all support—is that there should be equal value in equal votes, so far as possible. I do not consider that a great constitutional change which needs great pre-legislative scrutiny. Of course he talked about pre-legislative scrutiny and further public consultation—perhaps public hearings—in advance of any proposals from the Government. That would certainly scupper any chance of the electorate being able to vote at the next election, if it is in 2015, with a new and more equal distribution of votes. The noble Lord flattered this House very adeptly—we all enjoy a bit of flattery—by saying that it has a considerable reservoir of knowledge, and that many of us have stood in many different elections and experienced boundary changes and changes in constituencies. That is absolutely right. However, I thought that he was getting perilously close to saying that, on this issue, this House was entitled in some way to be superior to the other place.