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Jim Sheridan (West Renfrewshire) (Lab): On a couple of occasions the hon. Gentleman has mentioned friends and colleagues who are no longer with us. In the wake of the private conversations that he had with them, did either of them ever mention the hokey-cokey politicians who cannot make up their minds whether they will stay in this Parliament or in the Scottish Parliament?
John Thurso: Everything that I have quoted from Lord Mackay is in Hansard. As for the hokey-cokey, I remember that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, said that as long as you were in the Chair there would be no hokey-cokey in this Chamber. I think we will leave it at that.
There clearly is nothing dafter than maintaining the reduction, and the Government are right to have addressed that point.
Mrs. Jacqui Lait (Beckenham) (Con): The hon. Gentleman has been having a little bit of fun about the Conservative party's position now compared with its stance during the passage of the Scotland Bill. He should acknowledge that Lord Mackay in the House of
Lords and my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) in the House of Commons both made the point that the numbers should be reduced in the Scotland Bill—that is, that the Bill, as it went through Parliament, was wrong.
John Thurso: The hon. Lady is right, inasmuch as the noble Lord argued that whatever numbers we started off with, we should continue with them. I think that if Lord Mackay were here today he would maintain that position. Undoubtedly he would have preferred to start with 108. However, given the choice of 129 reducing to 108 or 129 continuing, he made it clear that he wanted to stay with the 129.
The Scottish Affairs Committee's report deals with coterminosity. All the evidence clearly shows that coterminosity is highly desirable, particularly for political organisers. It is also extremely convenient for the electors. In the short term, the status quo envisaged in the Bill is therefore the lesser of two evils, but in the longer term it must be right and desirable to achieve conterminous boundaries.
There is clearly far less consensus on voting systems, as has been evidenced this afternoon. The recommendation of the Committee, while clearly interesting and deserving of serious consideration, does not, in my opinion, maintain the concept of proportionality. However, I can see how that might be varied. As the proposal is currently written, four voting systems would still be involved. I suspect—perhaps the remarks made this afternoon confirm this—that the Committee's attention was more focused on reducing the interference that it perceives from this place than on what might be the best voting system.
I have already welcomed the Secretary of State's announcement bringing forward the review. I will leave it at that on electoral systems, because, like my right hon. and hon. Friends, I look forward to advancing the argument for the single transferable vote when the commission starts its work.
The Conservatives have tabled an amendment that a short while ago their colleagues would, as I have recounted to the House, have described as daft. Of all the opportunistic mumbo jumbo that has emanated from the Opposition Dispatch Box, this one takes the biscuit. We are invited to oppose the Bill, despite the support for it in all other quarters, because it is said not to address the proliferation of politicians in Scotland. What proliferation? What are we talking about? We are talking about either maintaining the status quo—that can hardly be described as a proliferation—or reducing the number by about 21 persons. How many politicians are there in Scotland, even with us, local councillors and MSPs? There must be 1,000 or more. If a reduction of 21 in 1,000 is a proliferation, I fail to see the logic.
Mr. Peter Duncan: I know that the hon. Gentleman has a vigorous campaign of surgeries in his constituency. If he were to ask people attending those surgeries whether there were too many politicians in Scotland or too few, what does he think most of them would say?
John Thurso: Most of my constituents would simply like to get something done by the politician to whom they are speaking—and I have never concerned myself about the Conservative list MSPs who parachute in from time to time.
The proliferation that the Conservatives choose to talk about is inexplicable, unless they are seeking to sabotage the devolution settlement and go back to the days before there was a Scottish Parliament. The amendment that they tabled makes no sense. Either the Conservative party still does not accept devolution or the amendment is illogical.
The Bill is short. It is, I hope, an interim measure before moving on to sunnier pastures, and I hope that that period will be short and sweet. It does not go quite as far as my right hon. and hon. Friends and I would like, but it does the job and starts the process, and for that reason we welcome it and will vote for it.
6.30 pm
Mr. Jimmy Hood (Clydesdale) (Lab): The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) started his speech by telling us about the wonderful plaudits for proportional representation. He said that PR benefits the public. I will tell the House who PR benefited at the last Scottish Parliament elections. The party that 86 per cent of the people voted against decided who would be the First Minister. That is what PR did for the people of Scotland. Those who argue the case for PR should remember that very simple fact.
Mr. Salmond: Did it come to the wrong decision?
Mr. Hood: It certainly did not, but I did not agree with some of the arguments that were put forward in support of that decision. I certainly did not support the move for PR for local government. I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to put that on the record.
I, too, should like to put on record a bit of history. We have had some history from the Secretary of State tonight and from others. I was fortunate to be present for a lot of the discussions on the various electoral systems, and, as most Labour Members will know, the Labour party was dragged into supporting PR at the Scottish convention. Let me tell the House how the votes stacked up in the Scottish Executive when the decision was made. It was an equal vote and the chairman's casting vote decided it. The chairman at the time was a Member of Parliament from one of the Edinburgh constituencies. He is not with us, so I shall not name him. The Member of Parliament who was supposed to represent the Westminster Members of Parliament on the Scottish Executive, the overwhelming majority of whom were against PR, voted for PR against the wishes of his Westminster colleagues. Those Labour Members who, to put it politely, may wish to reconsider history, should remember that the Labour party is strongly against PR.
Sir Robert Smith: I accept that many in the Labour party are strongly against PR, but if the hon. Gentleman looks back at the history, was it not that those who believed that a Scottish parliament was essential to good governance in Scotland realised that the only way in which that could be delivered was by agreeing to PR to reassure the electorate in Scotland, particularly outside of Glasgow and Edinburgh, that they could vote for a Scottish parliament in the referendum? It was only by
delivering PR that Labour, and people such as Donald Dewar, realised that we could finally get a Scottish parliament to look at legislation in Scotland.
Mr. Hood: In 1997, the Labour Government could have legislated for a Scottish Parliament with a first-past-the-post system and we would have had better governance in Scotland now than perhaps we have with the wishy-washy Liberals as part of the Executive.
To return to my trip down memory lane, the Labour party accepted—
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP): That is new consensus politics, is it?
Mr. Hood: The Labour party accepted the consensus of the convention and went into the election promising to legislate, but with a caveat that we would put it to the people through a referendum, and it would be, to use the words of the much maligned Donald Dewar—unfairly so—the settled will of the Scottish people. It was the Scottish people who decided by an overwhelming vote in the referendum what the electoral system should be, and it was partly first past the post and partly PR.
What we are debating today does not honour the settled will of the Scottish people or the consensus on keeping PR. I get the distinct feeling that Labour Members have been sleepwalked, and I say to my friends and colleagues in the Scottish Parliament that the MSPs have been sleepwalked, into PR, which the Labour party would never have supported in the convention. That was never part of the negotiations in that settlement. I do not share the point of view of those who say that it was always the intention to keep the size of the Parliament at 129 Members and to change the electoral system.
There was a huge row when the Prime Minister and Lord Robertson, then the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, argued the case for the referendum. There were to be two votes, and I supported the argument for the referendum. I can remember telling the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, that I was supporting the call for the referendum to entrench the will of the Scottish people in the settlement. We argued for entrenchment because we were worried about a future Tory party coming in and undoing the Scottish Parliament, which we supported. Yet here we are debating a narrow change in the Scotland Act 1998, which those of us who strongly believe in first past the post—there are a number of us in Scotland, especially within the Scottish Labour party—think means that what we agreed to, which we supported in good faith, will be taken away from us, and I do not feel at all comfortable with that.
The reduction in the number of MSPs was part of that agreement. No one said to me at any time that they wanted to keep the same number of MSPs. Sacrosanct to me was the coterminosity of the constituency boundaries of the MSPs and the Westminster MPs, and that is so important today. For example, under the new boundaries there are two seats in Lanarkshire. One is Lanark and Hamilton, East and the other East Kilbride.
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