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Mr. Brian Wilson (Cunninghame, North) (Lab): I am listening carefully to right hon. Friend, but will he confirm my interpretation that he is proposing to set up a commission in order to sort out a confusion that we are still in the process of creating today?
Mr. Darling: No, I would not agree with my hon. Friend. We are trying to resolve the difficulties arising from the fact that, by 2007—assuming that the legislation to set up local government elections is passed—we will have four different systems for electing various people in Scotland, which has an electorate of 3.8 million. That needs to be resolved and that is why I am setting up a commission. It would have been possible for the Government to propose a particular solution, but I believe that we need a consensus—inasmuch as it is possible to secure one—to ensure that the system is generally acceptable in Scotland.
Mr. O'Neill: Can my right hon. Friend tell us more about the sequence? The Bill is going through Parliament and will deal with the number of seats. Is the commission not in any way related to the functions or purposes of the Bill, or will it feed into some part of the parliamentary procedures? Will it result in legislation that is wholly separate from the legislation before us today? Frankly, I do not understand the timetable of what my right hon. Friend is talking about. Would it not be more sensible to withdraw the legislation and let the commission deal with the problem, so that we could then come back and deal with its recommendations?
Mr. Darling: I shall have to disappoint my hon. Friend on that. We said two years ago that we intended to introduce legislation to retain 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament. We promised to do that and the Bill to achieve it is now before the House. It is being dealt with separately from the issues considered by the commission.
I set up the commission because I am well aware that both within and outside political parties in Scotland there is concern about the number of different voting systems and the problems thrown up by the lack of coterminosity between Westminster and Holyrood. That is why a commission is being established, but its timetable is different from the timetable for the Bill. The intention is that the Bill, providing it gains the support of the House and the other place, will be on the statute book by the summer. We promised that we would do
that, and going back on that promise would be to invite allegations of bad faith. The commission, as I explained, is operating on a different time scale.
Mr. Mohammad Sarwar (Glasgow, Govan) (Lab): Does my right hon. Friend agree that the four different voting systems in Scotland for councils and Scottish, Westminster and European Parliaments will cause confusion among the electorate and encourage voter apathy in all elections? I understand that the commission may consider whether it is impossible for the Scottish and Westminster Parliaments to have the same system, but we should at least have the same system for local government in Scotland and for the Scottish Parliament.
Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend is right to suggest that the commission will consider the arrangements for elections in Scotland—those for the Scottish Parliament and those in relation to local government—and I agree that there is some confusion. All of us who voted last May will recall seeing people who were confused about how the list system worked. Indeed, at the polling station that I was in, an old lady asked for advice from the polling clerk, who looked at me and said, "Not while he's here." [Laughter.]
We also need to consider the clarity of outcome. It is curious that everyone who stood in some elections got elected one way or another under the present system, and some voters find that difficult to understand—although many hon. Members might quite like such a system if we got elected regardless of what we did. My hon. Friend is right. Indeed, the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, of which he is a member, considered those matters and believed that such confusion needed to be looked at.
Mr. Forth: Following the point made by the hon. Member for Ochil (Mr. O'Neill) and others, will the Secretary of State in the end use his huge majority of English MPs to stampede legislation through the House that affects Scotland?
Mr. Darling: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman anticipates that we will have a huge majority for some time to come.
Mr. Russell Brown (Dumfries) (Lab): I return to the Select Committee's excellent report, which states:
- "The Committee expects the Electoral Commission to produce its detailed proposals in time for the election to the Scottish Parliament in 2007 to be conducted under the new arrangements. It is, therefore, imperative that the Commission starts its work without delay"—
- "and that it presents its findings to the Secretary of State for Scotland who should take the final decision based on all available information."
Mr. Darling: As I said in relation to an earlier question, I want the commission to be set up as quickly as possible and then to report as soon as it can, subject to having adequate time to consider such things.
Thereafter, assuming that it recommends some form of change, primary legislation will be necessary. For obvious reasons, I cannot say when the Government might introduce such legislation, especially as we have not even got any recommendation to do so, but many people will take the view that, having set up the commission, it is best to ask it to get on with its work as quickly as it reasonably can because keeping such matters going for year after year would be unnecessary and not widely acceptable.
Mr. Michael Weir (Angus) (SNP): Much has been made of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs report. I am a member of that Committee. Does the Secretary of State not accept that the defect in the report is that, after calling for a commission, it makes a specific recommendation for a system that many Labour Back Benchers are pushing for? Does he accept that that is wrong and that the commission should be completely independent?
Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman is relatively new to the House, but I can assure him that it is not unknown for Select Committees to make recommendations.
Mr. Jimmy Hood (Clydesdale) (Lab): I am trying my best to be sympathetic to the difficulties in which the Secretary of State finds himself, but is it not the truth that he is experiencing difficulties because we agreed—he says two years ago, but it may be more—to change the legislation without understanding the consequences of the change? We are now being asked to change the legislation and to rely on a commission of the great and the good to make decisions for us or to make recommendations. That does not point to good governance at all.
Mr. Darling: I do not agree with my hon. Friend. Anyone who considered the matter two years ago when the former Secretary of State made the announcement would have understood full well the import of what was being considered.
There is a simple point to make about the commission. Although, in theory, it would be open to the Government of the day to say, "Right, this is the voting system. Take it or leave it", I do not think that it would be possible to make a change on something as fundamental as the way in which we elect representatives without there being a degree of consensus. My hon. Friend and I might disagree on that point, but it is important.
I am not suggesting that a commission is the only way to proceed, but I propose to establish a commission and I have said that I shall talk to party representatives in the House to get it set up as quickly as possible. However, as I have said many times before, there needs to be a debate in Scotland the best way of electing MSPs about and so on. That is the best way to proceed.
At this stage, I shall briefly go through what is in the Bill.
Mr. Darling: By convention, Secretaries of State do that, but I sense that the mood of the House is for me to do it quite quickly.
Mr. Tom Clarke (Coatbridge and Chryston) (Lab): I think that I have understood everything that my right hon. Friend has said to the House, but one issue is not clear in my mind because it is one for the Scottish Executive. On the proposals for electing councillors to local government, do the Scottish Executive take a firm view or are they prepared to submit proposals on that to the same commission or to arbitration in the way that my right hon. Friend will in respect of matters that are relevant to him?
Mr. Darling: As I said a while ago, the decision about the system for electing councillors in Scotland is entirely a matter for the Scottish Executive. We have no control at all over that. It will be for the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Parliament to decide what course of action they wish to follow. My right hon. Friend will be aware of the agreement between the governing parties in the Scottish Executive in relation to this and it is no part of my statement today to interfere in the working of it. The commission will be set up after discussions with the First Minister and it will consider not just how we elect MSPs, but the implications of the changes proposed for councils. Whether that has implications for what the Scottish Executive are doing is a matter for them and not for me. It would probably be against the spirit of the whole devolution settlement if I were to go any further than that.
As I have said, the Bill is short and to the point so I can deal with what it does fairly quickly. [Interruption.] Most of my speech has not been about the Bill. Clause 1 will replace the first schedule to the Scotland Act 1998, which makes provision for constituencies. It will keep the size of the Parliament at 129 Members.
Clause 2 will give effect to the provisions in schedule 3 on the review of Westminster constituencies and the Scottish Parliament regions that is being carried out for the boundary commission for Scotland. Schedule 1 will provide a mechanism for reviewing these boundaries whatever they may be once the Bill is on the statute book.
Schedule 2 will make transitional provisions to deal with the position before the Electoral Commission takes over, and schedule 3 is important because it ensures that the boundary commission's recommendations in relation to the Scottish regions will no longer be relevant.
The scope of the Bill is narrow and deliberately so, because its sole aim is to give effect to the Government's promise to retain the current size and structure of the Scottish Parliament. I believe that the commission that I have announced today will deal with a number of concerns that have been raised not just in the House but throughout Scotland, and it will make recommendations on how we elect Members to the
Scottish Parliament in future. However, as I have said, the purpose of this Bill is to make provision for retaining 129 MSPs. I commend it to the House.
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