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Mr. Beith: Eighty per cent. of the electorate decided that a European by-election was not a particularly useful thing in the north-east of Scotland, and therefore did not vote. Could that be because the present system, to which the right hon. Gentleman wishes us to return--and to which we shall return, if he succeeds in blocking the Bill--provides no opportunity for any elector to vote for a different candidate from the party of his choice? How can a right be taken away from people who do not have it under the present system?
Sir Norman Fowler: I thought that the Liberals were in favour of the open list. They have been arguing for it over the past month. Now they are arguing in favour of the closed list. Before a Liberal spokesman contributes to the debate--I do not know which of the terrible three on their Front Bench will do so on this occasion--the Liberals should decide what their policy actually is. We know about the dark rooms, and the tablets, and all that; could someone now define exactly what the Liberal party is up to?
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury): Surely that is too much to expect from the Liberals.
Mr. Kevin Barron (Rother Valley): The right hon. Gentleman has argued that people vote for individuals rather than parties. Does he agree that the Leader of the Opposition sits in the House because he deserted South Yorkshire? Not enough people there vote for the Conservative party, so he had to go to North Yorkshire, where people do vote for it.
Sir Norman Fowler: There are a good many embarrassed faces among the hon. Gentleman's colleagues. A good many people have been dodging around the country over the years. I note that the Home Secretary is keeping quiet.
Instead of the constitutional reform that the Government promised, they are giving us constitutional reform that involves regional lists of candidates drawn up by party bosses. The effect will be that the elected MEP answers not to the public, but to the party. That is the basic defect of the system. [Interruption.] I would be delighted if a Labour Member were to make a speech in favour of closed lists. [Interruption.] In that case, it will be almost a maiden speech.
Finding Labour Members to defend the closed list has been a difficult task, as has been evident to anyone who has attended our debates regularly. However, when I made the point in a letter to The Times last week, a Labour Back Bencher--the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer)--came out of the woodwork.
He made a rather odd claim about the position, and about individual lists; but what was most intriguing about his letter was his claim that he wrote as a Back Bencher
The hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton)--who has obviously been allowed time off for good conduct--was prevailed on to speak twice. He made interesting speeches--we journalists must stick together--and his case on the closed list was only slightly dented by his admission that he actually supported the open list. Another Labour Member who spoke was later heard to say, "I did it yesterday; they can get someone else to do it today."
The fact is--as everyone knows--that Labour Member after Labour Member has attacked the closed list. The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn); the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell); the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody); and the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) have all attacked it. Perhaps above all, the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) has attacked it. He has said:
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham):
My right hon. Friend is right to remind us that, in any battle between principle and expediency, among the Liberals expediency always gains the upper hand without much delay. Does he not think, however, that the reason for the Liberals' tergiversation in recent weeks is simply that, when they supported the open list, they believed themselves to be nominally part of the Opposition? They are now supporting the closed list in recognition of the fact that they are snivelling and sneaking up to the Government these days.
Sir Norman Fowler:
I am a generous man. I would not dream of putting it in such emotive terms, but the point that my hon. Friend makes is that the Liberal Democrats are deeply schizophrenic. That is one of their characteristics.
Ms Oona King (Bethnal Green and Bow):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir Norman Fowler:
I do not think that I will give way again. Let me go on.
Whatever we disagree on, let us not have any of the nonsense that the closed list was a manifesto pledge of the Labour party. The Home Secretary implied that the public should have known that the closed list was what the Labour party intended all along. That case was destroyed by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), who said that he had absolutely no idea that it was a manifesto pledge, and for good reason. It was not a manifesto pledge; it cannot have been. If the closed list were a manifesto pledge, why did the Home Secretary announce on Second Reading that he was considering a different system? It was the Home Secretary who set the hares running on the issue and he cannot now row back from that.
This is an important constitutional proposal. It is precisely the sort of constitutional proposal that any self-respecting second chamber should challenge. The suspicion is developing that it is not only that the Government want the hereditary peers out; they also do not want an effective second chamber.
Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle):
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir Norman Fowler:
I will not, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.
I agree again with what the right hon. Member for Chesterfield said on that point. As a replacement for the House of Lords, the Government are offering us another form of closed list: a closed list of appointees and placemen. That is the only proposal in front of the House. If some people have their way, that is exactly how it will remain.
That point was put well by Steve Richards, political correspondent of the New Statesman, not exactly a Conservative central office publication.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw):
How does the right hon. Gentleman know?
Sir Norman Fowler:
If the Home Secretary wishes to challenge that proposition, I invite him to the Dispatch Box.
Steve Richards said:
According to The Guardian on Saturday, the Government now intend to go further down the appointed road: they have an emergency plan to create 50 new Labour and Liberal Democrat life peers in one day in
January. Therefore, we now face the prospect of an influx of Labour life peers, which will make Lloyd George's efforts look like a modest sideshow.
"who was not able to speak in the debate".
"Not able to speak in the debate"? We have debated the issue four times. Was the hon. Gentleman bowled over in the rush to defend the Government? Was competition among those who wished to speak up for the closed list so fierce that Labour Members had to climb over each other to get at the Opposition? That is not my recollection. It did not look like that from the Opposition Benches--or, I suspect, from the Government Benches.
"The closed list system allows fixers to get their way, which is the real reason why I oppose it."--[Official Report, 10 November 1998; Vol. 319, c. 229.]
The only Members of Parliament who appear to have any enthusiasm for the closed list are the Liberal Democrats, who, until a few weeks ago, were strenuously arguing for the open list. That will come as no surprise to any hon. Member on either side of the House who has watched them in action over the years.
"In the House of Lords some of our peers are having a ball. They sense they have won the argument. They know they are privileged and want to hold on to those privileges for as long as possible . . . I am not referring to the hereditary peers . . . no the peers who are looking very pleased with themselves are those who have been appointed by Tony Blair over the last eighteen months . . . the appointed peers are perfectly happy about the short term battle to abolish the hereditaries, but I do not detect any great demand among them for further reforms which would threaten their own positions."
That is the point. The Government are proposing an appointed quango; there is no doubt about that. No one knows where they will go next--there is no doubt about that because they have no idea where they will go next--but one thing is certain. They will come under no pressure from their appointees and their placemen, who are very content with their lot.
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