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Baroness Hanham: My Lords, at this stage of these rather extended proceedings I do not propose to rehearse again the reasons why we are here still discussing this issue, as they have been rehearsed adequately by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. They have been aired on at least five previous occasions and prior to that in Committee and on Report, and they relate primarily to the difficulties that the Government have created for themselves by not accepting the strongly held and now settled view of the Electoral Commission, that the north-west is an unsuitable region in which to pilot all-postal voting; and the Government have ignored their original decision to hold the pilots in up to three electoral regions. That is a position that could have been achieved if the Government had accepted the amendment, agreed by a majority in this House, several sittings ago.

I say with some temerity that it is the Government's own obduracy which has created this situation. It was not the opposition parties that set up the Electoral Commission; it was this Government. The opposition parties have not twisted the arm of the chairman of the Electoral Commission to maintain his position about the north-west. How could we? The one consistency that there has been through all of these proceedings has been the view of that commission. The chairman has held firmly to that despite the enormous pressure to come to heel that has clearly been put upon him by the Government.

We have confidence in the chairman, and the Government should be satisfied that in him they have a public servant who is truly independent of them and has demonstrated that. We have confidence in his views on this matter and are deeply concerned that the Government have chosen to try to go against the commission on this significant electoral issue. It is a significant issue. If the Government succeed today, they will do so against the advice of their own advisers. Over one-third of the electorate will take part in the pilot—a huge number—and we have questioned on many occasions as to how a third of the electorate could be deemed as a "pilot". It will put in place a procedure that separates the electorate from both its

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candidates—since it is hard to campaign when voters are completing their ballot papers over several weeks—and the ballot box, which is a symbolic and practical representation of our democratic principles. It paints on too large a canvas the possible difficulties associated with that experiment.

The Minister has pointed out on several occasions that the four regions in which the Government wish to hold the pilots are those which will be voting in the regional referendums. I welcome the Minister's comment today that there will be a report on the pilots and that it would be discussed in this House. But can the Minister say if the Government expect that the Electoral Commission will be able to produce a report on the pilots in good time for them to be taken into account before the referendums are set up and take place? It is essential that, if the pilots are to be informative for the regional referendums, the information that comes from them is in the public domain and has been considered by Parliament long before those referendums are undertaken.

There will be elections on 10 June. That gives us a very little parliamentary time in which the Electoral Commission can reach its views within that time and before the referendums take place. I would be grateful if the Minister would enlighten us on that aspect.

The Government bear responsibility for the position they find themselves in. Electoral changes, as my noble friend Lord King said on Tuesday, and as has been alluded to today by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, should have all-party support. Any government who tamper on their own with the democratic constitution of this country do so at their peril. We need unanimity of view. It is clear that there is no unanimity of view on this matter. It is also clear that the Government, in their original intention, long since could have had the Bill passed. Any consequences of the delay up to today for the four regions which will ultimately carry out the pilots will lie firmly in the Government's lap. I will recommend that my colleagues again support the Liberal Democrats' amendment.

Lord Clark of Windermere: My Lords, I hesitate to intervene in the debate. I am conscious that I have been a Member of this House for only a little under three years, although I have had almost 30 years' experience as a Member of Parliament in one capacity or another.

I intervene to address the narrow problem that we are debating, which is also a critical problem. In a sense, the original issues have now been escalated to a much higher level. I am referring to the issue of the principle of the primacy of the elected Chamber; also, the right of this House to express a view, to delay and to ask the elected House to think again. Those are the two concepts which I find difficult to reconcile. They are not incompatible but their relationship is delicate. When we are discussing the matter for the sixth time, it becomes even more delicate.

When we are trying to balance those two concepts, we have to examine a number of principles—one of those concerns whether the House is really being even-handed on this issue. It might be argued that that is a

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matter of opinion. But I tried to harden that up and took the trouble of examining every vote in this House since 1970 to see how many times, under different governments, this House overturned a decision of the other House. It might be helpful to your Lordships if I briefly highlighted them—there are only five sets of figures, but they make my point.

Under the Conservative government of 1970–74 this House voted against the government on only 5.9 per cent of occasions. In the following Labour government of 1974–79 that figure was not 5 per cent—the House voted against that government in 80.4 per cent of the votes. I stress that the figure is not 18 but 80 per cent. Under the Conservative government of 1979–97 that figure of voting against the government fell from 80.4 per cent to 8.4 per cent of all votes. In the Labour Government of 1997–2001, this House exercised its right to vote against the government in 21.4 per cent of votes. Since 2001 this House has voted against the Government on 38.2 per cent of occasions. So far in this Session, that figure is above 51 per cent. I am trying not to be controversial, but I believe that fair-minded citizens who look at those figures will draw their own conclusions.

Lord Elton: My Lords, I would like to address the same point and make clear that the comparisons made by the noble Lord, Lord Clark, are not entirely fair. For most of the time from which he took those figures, the Conservative Party nominally had an enormous majority in this House and could act virtually as a free agent. However, that majority was independent because it did not require to be elected, it had not been put in place by anyone to whom it owed a duty and therefore, as regards a Conservative government, it was unreliable.

I can illustrate that from personal experience. In 1985, I was in charge of the Local Government Bill to abolish the Greater London Council. During the proceedings on the Bill, my Leader, Lord Whitelaw, put to me the proposition that the opportunity should be taken in the Bill to abolish the Inner London Education Authority. That proposal to abolish a democratic body—which this House was not—was to be made in a Bill which had been through the other place. I was able to tell Lord Whitelaw that much as I wished to support him, I would certainly not be able to get it through our own ranks or this House and would probably lose the Bill too. That does not appear on the radar screens put up by the Minister. The figures relating to the period in office of the Conservative government conceal a significant influence on government policy which is not apparent in the figures.

Noon

Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, we had a most interesting introduction from the Minister about constitutional issues, which have been dwelt on by the noble Lord, Lord Clark. Traditional arguments were advanced about the respective powers of the two Houses and how, since 1999, they should operate. I

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want to raise a different constitutional issue. It was raised 30 years ago by Lord Hailsham; that is, the danger of elective dictatorship.

To be fair to the Government, they have done a great deal in their period in office to mitigate the danger of elective dictatorship and to put in place proper checks and balances. What they have done on devolution to Scotland and Wales and on the Human Rights Act are good examples of checks upon the unrestrained will of a government with a large majority in the House of Commons—a majority which I need hardly remind your Lordships from these Benches rests on a minority of the electorate.

One of the Government's most valuable reforms has been the creation of the independent Electoral Commission to ensure that electoral matters are dealt with objectively in the public interest, rather than forced through Parliament in the interests of partisanship, separating the players from the referee. No one in either House would want to question the care and competence with which the Electoral Commission has approached its work.

It is therefore all the more sad that the Government have been prepared to use their majority in the Commons to try to override the clear advice of the Electoral Commission. Even at this eleventh hour, I hope that the Government will think again. What kind of signal will be given about the health of our democracy if the advice of the Electoral Commission is disregarded, if its authority is therefore undermined, and if this is done in the perceived short-term interests of the governing party? At the least, it would be a dangerous precedent.

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