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Mr. Gummer: I support the view that there should be at least a year before changes of this kind could be implemented. I do so first and foremost in defence of the democratic principle that the arrangements for elections should be as distant from the parties that take part in them as is humanly possible. It is crucial that we get it right, not only for this country but to set a gold standard for others. We are the country that pioneered many of the rules and regulations that ensure fair elections.
We have an Electoral Commission, which was established in order to distance such decisions about electoral procedure from this House and the political parties within it. I ask the Minister to think seriously before he decides that he will not accept a recommendation by the Electoral Commission. There are occasions when the practical experience of this House may lead us to suggest that something that the commission recommends is not appropriate, but we must be able to argue the case very strongly, with genuine reasons for achieving the end in view. In all other cases, the House would do well to accept as a matter of course that which the Electoral Commission has recommended, not least because the public out there properly see it as an independent proposal and would quite likely judge a change proposed by us to be a mechanism to avoid the consequences of that proposal. I do not think that that is the case, but the Minister needs to explain very clearly why a six-month notice period is so superior to 12 months that it should be preferred against the independent advice.
I happen to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) about putting elections together. I have always thought that administrative convenience and neatness are never proper defences for actions when those actions may well be seen by the public as encouraging a different result from that which might occur were there to be separate elections. I personally feel very strongly about the offensive nature of the list system, which does not enable me to choose between candidates. We are sometimes faced with lists where
our attraction to all the candidates standing even for the party which we support is, shall we say, somewhat limited. In those circumstancesit happens on all sides of the fencepeople make a different decision when they go into the polling booth. It is pretty dangerous for us to say that it is better that they should not do that, because that decision is not up to politicians to make. If people wish to be volatile in their choiceif they wish to vote differently in different electionsour job is to convince them, if we wish to, that they should not. However, that decision is their electoral and democratic right.
I have strong objections to the bulking together of elections in any case, but what must be true is that such a decision must be made at a distance whereby no one could think it to be party political. In that respect, not only the Electoral Commission matters but the ordinary punter. I think that most people would feel perfectly happy were the Government to make such a decision now about 2009, even if they did not really approve of the bulking together of elections.
I think that the public would be perfectly happy with a notice period of about 12 months. I am a bit worried, however, that many people think that some shenanigans are going on. The Minister has to accept that they have pretty good reason to think that, given the events of the past four weeks. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) made the case moderately and carefully, without casting aspersions in any way. However, it looks to most people out there as if there has been some pretty peculiar behaviour regarding electoral dates in recent months. It is reasonable to say that we do not want people to lose confidence in the electoral system, so I support the proposal that we accept the continued desire for the period in question to be a full year.
I come to the amendment relating to namesI am sorry that the Minister has not taken the opportunity to deal with another problem which I hope he agrees to reconsider. I am proud to represent the constituency of Suffolk, Coastal. It is the only constituency in Britain that has an ungrammatical titlea problem that I have always had with it. The boundaries of my constituency have changed every 10 years, and whereas it once was contiguous with the Suffolk Coastal district council area, now it is not. I take in a significant part of the Waveney district council, but not a significant part of the Suffolk Coastal district council. That is a confusing element for perfectly reasonable constituents who might have had no reason to write to their Member of Parliament, but now wish to. They see the name Suffolk, Coastal, they happen to live in Framlingham, which is within the area of Suffolk Coastal district council, and so they write to me, because I sit for Suffolk, Coastal. I do not, however, represent Framlingham. The issue is particularly difficult because I used to do so.
Similarly, the hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) used to have a seat that included Southwold, Halesworth and the villages round about. People with no political connections living in the Waveney district council area tend to write to the Member of Parliament for Waveney. The situation confuses them, and there ought to be a willingness to have names for constituencies that are not confusing. My worry about the amendment is that it may put people off some of the changes that should have been
made automatically. A constituency should not have the same nomenclature as a district council unless the two are coterminous.
The problem arises when tiny alterations take place. We get used to this. At the next election I shall be fighting for a seat that does not include Wisset. It is very sad for me, but I shall lose Wisset. I shall, however, gain Shadingfield and three small villages nearby. Another group of people are liable to be confused. We politicians think the matter very obvious, but most people do not have access to or an interest in the political structure, except from time to time. Sometimes, it is a long time between arrangements. People write to a Member of Parliament who they thought was the right one, and who was the right one when they last wrote, only to find that the situation has changed.
I put a plea to the Minister to do something about that, even if it means going back to some of the old names. I would not mind being the Member of Parliament for Dunwich, which was a rotten borough. I started off as the Member of Parliament for Eye, which was also a rotten boroughit is not now. At least that would mean that the people of Halesworth do not feel that they are looked after by Felixstowe or Woodbridge.
There is a problem for constituenciesparticularly one by the coast that is 74 miles long, as mine isbecause different places do not want to see others given pre-eminence. We may need names that are not well-known, but which make a distinction between the constituency and the district council. It worries me that the amendment has not considered that fact. Although this is not the place to do it, I hope that the Minister accepts that there are a number of examples of this problem throughout the country. Every time there is a boundary commission report, there are more such examples. The matter really needs to be taken into account.
Mr. Beith: It is comforting that my constituency has been called Berwick-upon-Tweed for approximately 500 years and that, despite boundary changes, it has retained that title.
I want to refer to some matters covered by the complex group of amendments and the clauses to which they relate and make, the Minister will be pleased to know, two relatively uncontroversial points. First, the timing of elections for new authorities is important. There is a principle at stake: the arrangements for a new authority should be agreed by those who have democratic accountability for it. That means that elections should take placein the way in which they have usually happened in local government reorganisationfor a shadow authority. That happened when I served on a shadow local authority in 1973-4. It enabled us to plan the new authority in the knowledge that our actions would fulfil the wishes of the council that would run the authority in 12 months. We have been holding discussions in Northumberland because of reorganisation about when elections should happen and there is general agreement that we want them to take place in 2008. That is the view of not only all the districts and Members of Parliament but that of the county council and all parties on it.
Mr. Gummer: And the chief constable?
Mr. Beith: I have not consulted the chief constable. I do not believe that he has a locus in the matter, except perhaps in providing police officers to ensure that the election is conducted safely. However, that has not been a problem in recent years in our part of the world.
I hope to talk to the Minister outside the Chamber at some point about the matter. It is especially important because there is no agreement about the temporary body that is provisionally trying to make decisions. Indeed, there is a dispute between the county, the districts and almost everybody else because the county has put all its executive members on the transitional committee. It has also included the leaders of the two opposition parties, but ensured that they do not have a votethey are non-voting members. The districts, the opposition parties and the rural areas are all outnumbered on the transitional body, so it has no validity. The dissenting members can claim that the decisions are not valid and that, when the council is elected, they cannot be expected to stand by them.
However, despite disagreement about the transitional arrangement, there is agreement across the board that we want elections in 2008 and do not want to wait until 2009. I hope that the Whip has not distracted the Minister from that important point.
Mr. Syms: The right hon. Gentleman is right that the changes that we have considered for a new authority would begin in April 2009. The first election would be in May and we have already debated altering that to June. He therefore makes a good point that we should get elections to the new authorities out of the way earlier.
Mr. Beith: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point and provides me with a compelling initial argument, which appears irresistible. I therefore hope that the Minister will assist all the parties in Northumberland. Elections in 2008 would help us get the new authority off the ground successfully.
Secondly, I want to consider the interaction that the clauses and amendments mention between parliamentary and local government boundaries. Hon. Members know that this House and the other place agreed parliamentary boundary changes earlier this year. Those of us who are affected have been trying to explain the new parliamentary boundaries to people. However, out of the blue, the boundary commission decided to take a handful of constituencies and conduct a further review. They include my constituency and neighbouring constituenciesonly six or seven are involved. The purpose is to align the parliamentary boundaries with the ward boundaries of the district councils. The Minister knows that those district councils will be abolished by his decision and the Bill. There is therefore no point in trying to align the boundaries. I have no particular view on the merits of the proposalI would gain a few hundred people at one end and lose a few hundred at the otherbut it is simply stupid. Again, I do not want the Minister to be distracted by the Whip. Doubtless, an important point is being made to him, but I shall not continue until he can give me his attention.
There is absolutely no point in trying to align parliamentary boundaries to ward boundaries that are
about to be abolished. I would hope that liaison between the Department for Communities and Local Government and the parliamentary boundary commission would be sufficient to put a stop to this ludicrous exercise. I have written to the Speaker in his capacity as Chairman of the boundary commission pointing out that difficulty. I hope that the Minister can also take it up. Going ahead is not just a waste of time and moneythe processes are quite expensivebut makes it really difficult to explain to people now what their boundaries are likely to be at the next election, because it is fairly unlikely that any subsequent changes will even be introduced before the next general election, although perhaps the Prime Minister will wait long enough for that to be the case.
I ask the Minister, first, to ensure that we can have our elections for the new authority in 2008 and, secondly, to ensure that there is proper liaison with the parliamentary boundary commission, so that it does not start running round trying to align parliamentary boundaries to ward boundaries that he is about to abolish.
John Healey: I have a lot of sympathy for the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) and the problem with his constituency name. I represent a constituency called Wentworth. It has a proud mining, steel-making and industrial heritage; yet the constituency, which is part of what should be Rotherham, North, is named not after any of those proud elements of our history, but after a small feudal village in one corner of the area, many of whose houses are still tied to its main estate. That is an extraordinarily English approach. I argued in the boundary commissions recent review that a name change was appropriate, but there was much resistance to it. I therefore have a lot of sympathy with the right hon. Gentlemans point, but the name of his constituency is a matter for the boundary commission. The amendments under discussion deal with the names of district wards or county divisions, so the issue is unfortunately not relevant.
I should point out to the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) that we are not debating whether to combine the dates of local and European elections in 2009. However, in 2004, when the local and European elections were last combined, the turnout increased in the European elections from 24 to 38.5 per cent. It increased not because the elections were held together to the convenience of the election administrators, but because they were convenient to the electors. The hon. Gentleman should perhaps not underestimate the intelligence of the electors, who can distinguish issues that may matter on a European front from those that matter locally, and who in some ways may be more interested in voting on both when they have a combined opportunity to do so.
Andrew Stunell: I appreciate the Minister giving way. He has given a clear hint of the Governments preference for June 2009. Will he therefore just accept that the 12-month rule rather than the six-month rule would be entirely appropriate?
John Healey: Whatever the hon. Gentleman says, I have given no hint of anything. I am dealing with the facts of what happened in 2004 and the details of the amendments before us, as I am sure you would wish me to do, Madam Deputy Speaker, although I will come to the hon. Gentlemans point about 12 months in a moment.
The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) asked me two things. Elections for the shadow authority, under proposals for a move towards a unitary authority as part of the reorganisation, will be a matter for orders made under the Bill once it receives Royal Assent. Such elections are not dealt with in the amendments before us. He and I have already discussed a suitable date for elections in Northumberland, and I am grateful to him for putting his points on record in the House this afternoon. I was not aware of the particular local circumstances of the parliamentary boundary review in his area. I will ensure that I draw his points to the commissions attention.
Let me deal with the amendments that the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) has tabled. He conjured up images of political advantage in the decision, which I believe are baseless for two reasons. First, the proposal in the amendment from the other place that I am urging the House to accept will distance the decision to combine the election dates from the arrangements for the elections, as the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal urged us to do. That provision would be on the face of the Bill.
Secondly, there are safeguards in the process to ensure that there should be no question of perceived political advantage. Were a decision to be taken to combine the elections, there would have to be consultation with the Electoral Commission and others. Furthermore, any order would have to be approved by the affirmative resolution procedure in the House. If there were any question of perceived political advantage, I submit that it would become a serious issue and a matter of strong debate. I therefore do not accept the concerns that have been set out.
The six-month period refers not to the decision but to the order to be made. The amendment proposes a 12-month period for the order to be made. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) wanted to align the elections for 2009 and said that we could make such an announcement this week. If there were a requirement for the order to be made 12 months in advance, we would probably have had to have made such a decision already. It would not simply be a question of 12 months from when the order was made. In order to make an order, there would have to be a period of consultation of three months, if we were to follow the Cabinet Office guidelines. There would then have to be a period in which we considered the responses to the consultation, drafted the order, and found the time for it to be properly debated in the House. So we can see immediately that we are not talking about six months from when an order is made. The decision has to be made, and the notice given, substantially before that.
Requiring an order to be made 12 months in advance would get ourselves into the situation that we have at the moment under the Representation of the People Act 1983, which provides, in effect, for a 15-month notice period. That has resulted in that provision being
used only once in almost 25 years, because the period is too long, and the arrangements are too inflexible and do not serve the purpose that hon. Members would wish them to serve.
I say to the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire that placing in the Bill the provision for a six-month period between an order being made and an election being held will provide the necessary certainty and safeguards, give the necessary notice, and strike the balance that we are all striving for. I hope that he will not press his amendment to a vote, but if he does, I shall have to ask my hon. Friends to resist it.
Lords amendments Nos. 25 to 47 agreed to.
Lords amendment: No. 48, in page 31, leave out lines 23 and 24 and insert
(3) An order under subsection (1) must relate to a single year and must be
made at least six months before
(a) the local election day in that year, or
(b) if earlier, the date of the poll at the European Parliamentary general election in that year.
(3A) For this purpose the local election day in a particular year is
(a) the first Thursday in May, or
(b) if an order has been made under section 37(1)(b) (power to change date of council and Assembly elections) in relation to that year, the day specified in the order.
Amendment proposed to the Lords amendment: (a), leave out six and insert twelve. [ Alistair Burt.]
Question put, That the amendment to the Lords amendment be made:
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