Electoral Administration Bill

This has been an interesting debate. In a sense, I wish we were having a separate debate on this; we have noble Lords with a great deal of experience, not least the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. Noble Lords, perhaps from their experience of representation in another place, have a huge amount to contribute. I feel sadly wanting on both counts. Noble Lords tempt me to start a debate about voting systems and their purposes; believe it or not, I quite enjoy that. I will resist that temptation in order to make progress. We have all paid tribute to the work of the Boundary Commission; it is a difficult job. I agree that there is no criticism intended by the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham; rather, she probes a fundamental principle behind it. I gather that the Boundary Commission for England will be publishing its review later this year, which I hope will address some of the apparent discrepancies in current voter issues. I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, said about the difficulty of the amendment. While we accept that electoral equality is an important factor, we agree that it should not be the overriding one. Indeed, I have the same example as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart: the Isle of Wight. If we put this amendment into practice, about 30,000 residents of the Isle of Wight would be merged into a mainland constituency. If the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, can sell that to her noble friend the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, good luck to her—I know of that noble Baroness’s long and distinguished connection with the Isle of Wight. If we had strict adherence to the electoral quota as the sole consideration, then the parliamentary Boundary Commission would not be able to use the building blocks of county, London borough and district ward boundaries to create parliamentary constituencies. That would make the process of devising constituencies much more difficult. The 1986 Act also requires that the number of constituencies in Wales should not be less than 35; we calculate that the number of seats would be reduced from 40 to only 32. Noble Lords suggested using the census, but the census also records people not eligible to vote. Because it is done every 10 years, I am not sure that it would help much. Noble Lords questioned whether we should have more frequent reviews. When we used to have more frequent reviews, I gather that it was deeply unpopular with our colleagues in another place—I see noble Lords who have been MPs nodding—because things kept changing. It is always a question of trying to strike a balance, which the current position probably does. I understand the issues rightly raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, but it would be wrong to take one criterion and say that it was the only one, when issues of community and geography play a part. I hope that the noble Baroness will bring forward a separate debate on this issue—perhaps on a Thursday—as I think it would be worthy of a longer debate in your Lordships’ House, in which we could get into the detail and thrash out these issues more fully. I hope, on that basis, she is able to withdraw the amendment for today.