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The Duke of Montrose moved Amendment No. 2:
(1) The Boundary Committee shall complete the review within twenty calendar months of the date upon which the Electoral Commission instructed that the review be carried out.
(2) The Boundary Committee shall complete a review which does not involve a local inquiry held in respect of any region or regions within fourteen calendar months of the date upon which the Electoral Commission instructed that the review be carried out.
(3) The Boundary Committee shall carry out any reconsideration under paragraph 5(4)(a) within two calendar months of the request by the Electoral Commission.
(4) The Boundary Committee shall carry out any fresh review under paragraph 5(4)(b) within six months of the request by the Electoral Commission.
(5) Local authorities shall be required to have regard to the need to comply with the timetable laid down in this paragraph."
The noble Duke said: My Lords, we come now to how reviews are to be carried out. This amendment would impose a timetable on the process whereby the Boundary Committee completes its review, or reconsiders its review, at the request of the Electoral Commission.
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The principle that all government agencies should work to some form of timetable is important. It is not right that decisions which affect the livelihood, home, or education prospects of British citizens should be delayed because those charged with making them have no deadlines.
Doubtless the Minister will assure me that guidelines will be issued to remedy this situation. Guidelines, however, are not subject to review by Parliament—the Westminster Parliament, that is—and in practice are highly variable.
We have no idea from the Bill as it stands how long the procedure will take. It would be helpful at this stage if the Minister could give us some clarification or set out what he sees as the likely timing of the review and the report process.
We believe that it would be in the interests of transparency and accountability for some sort of timescale to be placed on the face of the Bill. The time limits we have suggested are perhaps not totally ideal, but it is the principle behind the amendment which we believe is important. I beg to move.
Lord Monro of Langholm: My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend. I think that the Government have got into a bit of a muddle over timing and we would like, with this amendment, to help them get out of their shambles.
As the Minister knows, we had very little sympathy in Committee and even at Second Reading for the fact that the Government had ended up by having four different methods of voting and representation in Scotland. We will have the local government constituency, the European constituency, the Westminster constituency, and the Edinburgh constituency, each of which may have a different method of voting. Can one imagine anything more complicated for the Scottish public than four systems and four constituencies? The Westminster constituencies will be new ones, of course, so there will be five issues to upset the public in Scotland.
The Deputy Prime Minister and others have spent a great deal of time saying that we should increase the percentage of votes at elections, that we should have postal votes, and goodness knows what else. All they have achieved so far, however, is a monumental difficulty for the average person to know in which constituency, how they are voting, and who their representatives might be. We also have, in the European Parliament, voting for parties rather than individuals—which I think is totally wrong in the modern world.
The key point here is that my noble friend has recommended a timetable. If we look at the present schedule, nothing need happen before 2010, which is six years away. In the light of what I have said about the shambles of the different constituencies and voting systems, I think that we have to get on with it a great deal quicker.
While I do not necessarily say, as my noble friend says, that we have the right timing, the Minister could bring forward an amendment at Third Reading which
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would speed up all the procedures by the Boundary Committee and the Electoral Commission. Between those two bodies and a general letting things drift, we will find that it will be 2010 before people know where we are in relation to half of the constituencies, boundaries and systems in Scotland.
There is a great deal to be said for getting on with the review after the next election and not letting it drift on to 2010. I should have thought that two years after the next election would be more than adequate. The Government should think of a form of words and an amendment, in order to bring about a little more speed in this regard.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, the timetable proposed by the noble Duke is perhaps desirable, but I doubt that it needs to be on the face on the Bill. The spirit is right, but it could lead to an ill-considered rush to complete the task. Perhaps this amendment would be better placed in guidance.
Lord Gray of Contin: My Lords, I think that we are at a slight disadvantage here. We have not had the opportunity of seeing the letter which the noble Duke received, and it may be that we are wasting the time of the House by raising this issue at all.
If the Minister is to tell us that this is all taken care of in the letter, there is no point in our proceeding further. Assuming that is not the case, however, I would like to associate myself with what the noble Lord, Lord Monro of Langholm, said.
I do not think that it was intended that this amendment should be sacrosanct. It is just an indication of what we would like to see included. If the Minister has a reasonable explanation for why this amendment should not be accepted, I do not imagine my noble friend would wish to press it. We wait with interest to hear what the Minister has to say.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, when the Minister replies, will he bear in mind while these reviews are being undertaken that they are upsetting to local activists, because alterations to boundaries alter the way those people work and change many matters to which they must have regard when they are making submissions and so on? A review of boundaries is not a peaceful affair. The public does not worry as much about it. The Minister may well say that and he may be right, because the public do not realise what happens. But I know what it is like to live in an area which is about to move constituencies. I do not know in which area I shall have to operate during the general election, the election for the Scottish Parliament or how those areas will overlap. That is worrying. It is important to bear that in mind and the questions should not take too long. They should be as speedy as they conveniently can be.
Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I am grateful for the debate and I hope that what I have to say will reassure noble Lords that we are looking at not a shambles or a muddle but a well thought-out policy.
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The amendment would impose various timetables on the review of Scottish Parliamentary constituencies by the Electoral Commission and its boundary committee for Scotland. As was argued by my noble friend Lord Filkin in Committee, we believe that it would be quite inappropriate for this House, as part of its consideration of the Bill, to start challenging and changing matters that will in due course become part of the core responsibilities of the independent Electoral Commission and its boundary committees.
The provisions in the Bill which relate to the review of constituencies are not some quirky, novel invention. Rather, they closely replicate the well established provisions for the review of Westminster constituencies which are set out in the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, supplemented as necessary by additional provisions regarding the regions for list seats in the Scottish Parliament in the Scotland Act. I should remind noble Lords that the Electoral Commission, which has a wide-ranging remit, was established by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. It is a UK-wide body, independent of Government and answerable directly to Parliament.
The way in which the commission was set up and the means by which it is funded were designed to emphasise its distance from the government of the day. The 2000 Act provides inter alia for the transfer to the Electoral Commission of the functions of the four parliamentary boundary commissions. The Act requires the commission to establish four boundary committees—one for each part of the United Kingdom. It should be obvious that these four committees need to operate under the same principles and carry out their functions in a similar manner.
However, the present amendments would introduce particular requirements and constraints which would be applied to only one of the four boundary committees—indeed, to only one of the reviews which it would be required to carry out. That cannot be right. Furthermore, the proposed timetables appear far too short and restrictive and would impose controls which the parent legislation—the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986—on which these parts of the Bill are based, does not require for any of the Westminster boundary reviews.
I should point out that the current boundary commissions—and in future the Electoral Commission—are required only to submit reports setting out their recommendations on parliamentary constituency boundaries every eight and 12 years between their previous reports. It is important to note that beyond that requirement they have freedom to report when they see fit.
As we said in Committee, if such restrictive timetabling as is proposed in the amendment were to be appropriate—and we do not think it is—it should be imposed on all the parliamentary reviews across the United Kingdom. The Boundary Commission and other interested bodies would almost certainly have to be consulted on both the principle and details before such far reaching changes were considered for adoption.
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I must repeat that the Government can see no justifiable case for departing unilaterally from the accepted review mechanism, which will continue to operate in relation to Westminster parliamentary constituencies. This is not the time to make such far reaching and important changes to the review of matters that go to the heart of the democratic process. Having heard this explanation, I hope that the noble Duke will withdraw his amendment.
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