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Clause 5
Lords amendment: No. 4, in page 3, line 36, after ("17(1)") insert
(", (Transfer of functions of Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland)(1)")
The Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office (Mr. Paddy Tipping): I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 5 to 11, 13 to 25, 331, 337, 346, 369, 374, 375, 637, 659, 660 and 662.
Mr. Tipping: The amendments in this group relate to the commission's general and electoral boundary functions. However, the changes to clauses 13 to 18 are perhaps the most significant. Their purpose is to strengthen the independence of the Electoral Commission in discharging its boundary review functions and to ensure that the full benefits arising from the transfer of those functions are realised.
8.30 pm
When the Bill left the House, it provided for the functions of the various parliamentary and local government boundary commissions to be transferred to the Electoral Commission, and required the commission to make arrangements for those functions to be exercised by the relevant territorial boundary committee. The amendments considerably improve on those arrangements.
Previously, the arrangements placed responsibility for the discharge of all boundary review functions in the hands of the four boundary committees and not the Electoral Commission as a whole. However, it is essential that the commission should exercise effective strategic oversight of the work of its four boundary committees. It is only by so doing that the full benefits of the merger of the parliamentary and local government commissions--improved efficiency, and greater effectiveness and coherence in the review of all boundaries from ward level to Westminster constituencies--can be realised.
The amendments also deal with the relationship between the Electoral Commission and Ministers. In establishing the commission, we have sought to make it as independent of the Government of the day as our constitutional arrangements will allow. In keeping with that status, the commission should be allowed to get on with its boundary review functions with a minimum of interference from Ministers.
To remedy those deficiencies, the amendments give effect to a number of changes. First, they allow for clearer allocation of responsibilities between the Electoral Commission and the four boundary committees. The commission as a whole will have overall responsibility for keeping parliamentary constituencies and local government electoral arrangements under review. It will then fall to the boundary committees to undertake the detailed task of conducting boundary reviews in accordance with any statutory rules and any directions issued by the commission.
On completion of a particular review, a boundary committee would make its recommendation to the commission. The commission then would have the power to accept those recommendations in whole or in part, or to reject them in whole or in part, and to require the boundary committee to undertake a further review or part review. It will also be open to the commission to modify the recommendations of a boundary committee with the agreement of the committee.
Mr. Bercow: The hon. Gentleman is a study in emollience, and his mellifluous tones are usually sufficient to reassure most, if not all, right hon. and
hon. Members. A moment ago, he referred to the minimum of ministerial interference. I am a suspicious fellow, and I should be grateful if he elaborated on that minimum.
Mr. Tipping: I shall try to be emollient and move on to the next part of my speech, which I hope will satisfy the hon. Gentleman.
The second main change is the removal of the Secretary of State's power, under section 4(1) of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, to modify the recommendations for changes to parliamentary constituency boundaries. It would remain a matter for both Houses of Parliament to accept or reject those recommendations. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) will see that, in parliamentary constituencies, we are taking this opportunity to remove the Secretary of State from the equation. I think that an important step forward.
The third step forward is for the Electoral Commission to have full responsibility for making changes to local authority electoral boundaries. In particular, the commission itself would make the necessary statutory instrument to give effect to recommendations made by one of its boundary committees. That is a further distancing of ministerial involvement.
Finally, structural or administrative reviews of local authority boundaries would be undertaken by the Electoral Commission in response to a request from the Secretary of State. In such cases, the decision whether to implement the commission's recommendations will remain with the Secretary of State, in recognition of the Government's legitimate interests in ensuring that there is effective local government.
Mr. Alasdair Morgan (Galloway and Upper Nithsdale): Lords amendment No. 11 quite sensibly specifies that the boundary committees should have a member from the appropriate country who has some experience of local government. If the provisions of the Scotland Act 1998 are not amended, any changes to Westminster parliamentary constituencies in Scotland would automatically apply also to constituencies for the Scottish Parliament. Equally, we should insist that a member of the commission should have some experience of Scottish parliamentary matters.
Mr. Tipping: That takes me back to a point that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State made earlier this evening. To only a limited extent can we prescribe in regulation--in law--what needs to be done. However, I am mindful of the hon. Gentleman's point. It is the intention to ensure that electoral bodies have a wide range of membership involving local government and the various parts of the United Kingdom. I hope that that will satisfy him. I shall ensure that his views are drawn fairly soon to the attention of the new commission when it is established, if Parliament agrees.
I thought that the hon. Gentleman would take me on to some Scottish questions, and I shall deal with them now. The new clause that would be inserted by Lords amendment No. 20 confers powers on Scottish Ministers to transfer to the commission one or more of the functions of the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland. The new clause broadly mirrors the equivalent arrangement for England and Wales. I doubly emphasise
that, as local government is a devolved matter, the decision whether or to what extent to exercise the powers in the new clause will rest entirely with Scottish Ministers. Likewise in Wales, responsibility rests with the National Assembly for Wales.The only significant changes made to the general functions of the commission are made by Lords amendments Nos. 6 and 9. These amendments confer on Scottish Ministers the power to extend the commission's functions in clauses 9 and 12. These are the functions of providing advice and guidance and of undertaking voter education programmes so that they cover local government elections in Scotland. I emphasise again that it is a matter entirely for Scottish Ministers.
Mr. Grieve: We welcome the amendments. We welcome especially the fact that measures have been introduced to allow the Scottish Executive and Parliament, if they so wish, to sign up. We discussed the matter in Committee, and it seemed to make eminent sense. This is an example of the Government having listened carefully to various representations, and the Bill has undoubtedly been improved in the process.
Mr. Salmond: It is interesting that the Minister gracefully introduced the Scottish sections of the amendments but without substantial explanation. That makes it all the more surprising that a Scottish Officer is not present to explain them, in addition to the Home Office Minister. One of the Ministers in the Scotland Office, whose functions and roles are hard to define now, might have come along to add his or her voice to those of Scottish colleagues.
We have been told by the Minister that these are matters for the Scottish Executive and Scottish Ministers in Edinburgh. That is of scant consolation when the same Ministers and the same Executive have recently changed unilaterally the date of the next Scottish local government elections. It is the first change of its nature, without consultation, that I can remember in recent political history.
I shall focus on the role of Scottish Ministers and that of the Electoral Commission in taking on board the Scottish role and Scottish sensitivities. I advance the argument that the amendments take us down the wrong track. We should be following the track that would lead to a separate Scottish electoral commission. We have had some experience of an electoral commission functioning. There was a voluntary commission, chaired by Professor Anthony King, which supervised the Scottish elections last year. It tried to bring into effect the recommendations of the Neill committee. It provided for the first time some of the measures that are outlined in the Bill in terms of disclosure of donations to the various political parties.
I have here the returns relating to various political parties, as contained in the disclosures. They show why the Government have chosen to go down the wrong road of trying to make a UK electoral commission sensitive to Scottish issues, when the right road would have been to create a separate Scottish electoral commission.
The returns show that, of the major donations to the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party, two came from London, two from Doncaster, and one each from Essex and Birmingham. The returns for the Scottish Labour party show that four substantial donations came from London, and one from Kent.
Most remarkable are the returns for the Scottish Liberal Democrats. They show that out of total donations of £216,500 made in the course of the Scottish election campaign, no less than £200,000 came from the Liberal Democrat party's London headquarters in Cowley street. The only donation from Scotland that the party managed to raise in the entire election campaign was £16,500 from Mr. Maitland Mackie, of Rothienorman in Aberdeenshire. That gentleman produces excellent ice cream, and had the distinction of running a poor third to my good self in Banff and Buchan in the election. It hardly seems that his money was well invested.
I make that point to show that, if the Government's logic were consistent, they would establish a separate Scottish electoral commission. The logic of the Government--although not of the Neill Committee--as set out in the Bill is that the qualification for being a donor is to be on the electoral register. Applying that logic to a Scottish election means that there should be a Scottish electoral commissioner making sure that all donors to parties in a Scottish election should be on the Scottish electoral register.
The Government may have chosen not to go down that path with the Bill for a number of reasons. Perhaps they want to maintain the subsidies that the London branches of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties give to their Scottish appendages. Those party appendages might be called subsidy junkies, but they are the only ones that exist in Scotland.
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