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Mr. Sarwar: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
John Thurso: If the hon. Gentleman will give me half a chance, I shall give way to him shortly.
I welcome the Bill because it gives effect to the Government's promise to maintain the number of MSPs in the Scottish Parliament, thereby maintaining the status quo.
Mr. Sarwar: I accept that the hon. Gentleman advocates proportional representation, because it benefits the Liberal Democrats and the nationalists. However, I am at a loss to explain why he supports having four different voting systems for elections for councils, the Scottish Parliament, Westminster and the European Parliament. I believed that the Liberal Democrats were concerned about different voting systems.
John Thurso: If the hon. Gentleman would be kind enough to let me get past my opening remarks, he would discover that I do not support our having four voting systems. I hope that he will permit me to develop that argument in a moment.
The current proportional system does not favour the Liberal Democrats. If we do the maths, we can see that other systems are slightly better. However, the critical point is that proportionality benefits the electors, and that is what we should be thinking most about. It was apparent to most of us who were involved in the passage of the Scotland Act 1998 that a drop of almost 20 per cent. in the number of MSPs would almost certainly be unworkable. There were widespread reports at the time that the then Scottish Office and the then Secretary of State for Scotland, Donald Dewar, wished to amend section 86 and other relevant provisions to decouple the Scottish parliamentary constituencies from Westminster constituencies. Indeed, I can confirm that in a private conversation that I had with Donald Dewar after the passage of the Act, he admitted as much.
Mr. Salmond: The hon. Gentleman's recollection is exactly the same as mine, because I had exactly the same
private conversations. However, the key point that people made was that imposing a number on an unwilling Scottish Parliament would be inconceivable. Does that not demonstrate that this discussion should be repatriated to the Scottish Parliament?
John Thurso: I shall not get into an argument about repatriation, but the hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Whether the matter is dealt with here or in the Scottish Parliament, it is inconceivable that it should be done without consultation and a consensus in Scotland.
John Robertson: As someone who took over Donald Dewar's constituency, and as a friend, I find that people rewrite history only after someone is dead. The rewriting of history never took place when that person was alive. Can the hon. Gentleman explain why those private conversations have suddenly come out, because they did not when the man was alive?
John Thurso: Other people were present when that conversation took place, and after our debate I would be happy to tell the hon. Gentleman to whom he could speak.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) (Lab): It is important to know what Donald Dewar is alleged to have said. What did he actually say?
John Thurso: He gave me the impression that he would prefer the matter to be decoupled and the numbers maintained, but had lost the argument in Cabinet.
Mr. Roy: The hon. Gentleman says that Donald Dewar gave him that impression. Does that mean that he said those words, or did the hon. Gentleman just take it that that was what he meant?
John Thurso: That was my understanding of a conversation that took place in 1998—they are not the exact words.
I should like to make some progress. It comes as no surprise that this matter has required attention, and it is to the Government's credit that they have sought to remedy an obvious error. The Bill has certain merits, and I shall deal with two that strike me. First, it is commendably short—I always like short legislation—and secondly, without question, it does the job that it is intended to do, which is to maintain the status quo at Holyrood. My right hon. and hon. Friends and I therefore welcome it. However, the Government may have missed an opportunity to take a longer look at the way in which the electoral system in Scotland operates, and they could have introduced proposals to address the problem. However, the announcement by the Secretary of State today is extremely helpful, and I welcome his comments. I look forward to reading them in Hansard to make sure that I have understood his announcement.
It makes sense, however, for an independent commission to look at coterminosity and methods of election as soon as is practicable. I welcome the fact that, as I hope, the commission will begin work this year, and
that its membership will be independent. I very much hope that it will stick with two key principles in the work of the Scottish Constitutional Convention—that a broad consensus will be sought, and that the commission will adhere to proportionality in representation. The Secretary of State made it clear in response to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) that those two principles would be included in the commission's brief, or guiding principles.My hon. Friends and I have long argued for the merits of the single transferable vote, and shall continue to do so. In addition to the obvious merit of being the most proportionate and fair system, it would, if adopted, have the added attraction of mirroring the proposed system for local government in Scotland, and dealing with the issue of coterminosity. However, I shall leave that for today, and look forward to submitting our evidence to the commission.
The report on the subject by the Scottish Affairs Committee is both timely and germane, and I am glad that we have had an opportunity to see it before the debate. First, it makes it abundantly clear that there is widespread support for maintaining the numbers. The proposal was backed by my party, the Scottish Labour party, the Scottish National party, the Scottish Parliament and the Executive, which is as broad a consensus as is possible in politics. The reason for that broad consensus is simple—it is the experience of the Scottish Parliament in action, particularly the Committee system, which everyone agrees has worked extremely well, and simply could not function satisfactorily with many fewer Members.
Mr. Andrew Turner: Will the hon. Gentleman explain, for the benefit of my constituents, why 100,000 Scots electors need five Members of Parliaments—and I mean Parliaments, in the plural—to represent them, whereas the constituents of the Isle of Wight need only one? [Interruption.] I know that that question has been asked before, but we did not get an answer.
John Thurso: I will leave the explanation to the hon. Gentleman's constituents to him. If I were in his seat, I would be looking to have proper representation for England. He should be asking why should the people of England have less representation than the people of Scotland, not saying that English Members are disadvantaged compared with those in Scotland. That is the answer to the West Lothian question, as we said in the debate on that question in the Chamber not long ago.
As the hon. Gentleman and others have observed, there was only one exception to the broad consensus that existed in Scotland, and that was the Scottish Conservative party, which wished the relevant provision in the current Act to remain in force. The Conservatives have made an amazing U-turn. They argued throughout the passage of the Scotland Bill in this House and the other place that the proposed reduction in numbers was wrong. One of my abiding memories from having been in another place is of watching Lord Sewel as he gamely attempted to fend off the penetrating arguments of Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, who, sadly, is no longer with us. Lord Sewel may have rebutted Lord Mackay's
arguments in that way because he was not particularly convinced of the arguments that he was trying to advance at the time.Out of interest, I referred to the House of Lords Hansard for 22 October 1998. After a long, cogent, well argued and structured speech comprehensively debunking the idea of reducing numbers, Lord Mackay said in summation:
- "Therefore, I cannot think of anything dafter for the Government to do than to say to this parliament, 'You can start off with 129 members, but when the House of Commons inevitably reduces that number to about 58 Scottish members . . . your numbers will be reduced in a similar manner—'".
- "I hope that the Government are going to listen and amend the Bill accordingly because nothing short of that will do."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 October 1998; Vol. 593, c. 1600.]
Mr. Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD): Perhaps the rationale behind the Conservative position now—and then—is that whenever it sees change proposed, and whatever that change is to be, it is against it.
John Thurso: I think that my hon. Friend is trying to say that the Conservatives are a tad opportunistic.
Lord Mackay and I disagreed on many things in politics, but on the occasion to which I have referred we were in accord. Later, when I moved an amendment to deal with the anomaly, I was delighted to see that all the Conservative Members of the other place followed me into the Lobby to support it. It was duly passed in another place. I regret that we were unable to achieve the same feat in this place, and it was duly removed by this House.
As I have said, I often disagreed with Lord Mackay, but I respected him both as a man and a parliamentarian. I believe that he was right in October 1998, and that nothing has changed except the current Scottish Conservative party, which seems hellbent on swapping obscurity for lunacy.
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