The Parliamentary Voting System Bill Lords' Review Stage
The last few weeks have highlighted some of the best and the worst of British legislative system in rapid succession. Although we're yet to start hurling dynamite at our leaders1, there is a lot going in Parliament. The Lord's Committee stage for this bill began at the end of November, and finished at the beginning of February. The report stage began a couple of days later, and the Lords' Third Reading was yesterday (14th), allowing the 'ping-pong' stage of considering the amendments to begin this morning2.
The bill got a lot of press a few weeks ago as being 'forced through' by the government3 in order to meet the deadline for the referendum to take place in May4. Since then, the BBC has out done itself in scaremongering headlines5: 'Disgraceful behaviour' in House of Lords over AV Bill, Lords row escalates after 'rough trade' peers claim, AV referendum 'at risk in Lords' to name but a few. Back in reality, the Lords has been executing it's duties as best it can now it has been corrupted by politics (more specifically party lines), which is to examine legislation and suggest alterations. A fine example: making the outcome of the referendum not binding unless 40% of the electorate take part. This is an achievable figure - 65.1% of the electorate turned out for the general election - and actually brings some purpose to abstaining.
The big stopping point, however, seems to be with the Constituencies part of the Bill: the opposition doesn't approve of the suggested boundary changes, which is some case have been rather poorly thought out. The Isle of Wight, physically disparate from the mainland, lacks the population to have its own MP under the original proposals, and would have been incorporated as part of two different mainland constituencies. Another example is Cornwall, where desire for 'independence' has lead to some parties not wanting one of their MPs to be shared with Devon (the so-called 'Devonwall MP'). This debate has also shown the government's brittleness as a coalition:
On a further point of sadness, it appears that the Government are probably not in a mood to make concessions. This rather wooden response of theirs may be part of the problems of coalition politics. I cite in evidence the debate on the Isle of Wight proposal. We understood, from the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, that all parties on the isle were in favour of an exception being made. The noble Lord made an extraordinarily strong case for that. It was quite clear to all of us that whatever arguments we might seek to raise it was easy to see that the Isle of Wight would not provide a precedent for other areas of the country and was unique. That surely should have been an opportunity for the Government to say, "We are a listening Government; we have heard the arguments and we are minded to change our position". But no-the Government insisted on putting the proposal to a vote and were then roundly defeated. Worse, they then tried to claim some benefit, saying, "This is one of the great concessions that we have made", when clearly any listening or reasonable Government not bound by a coalition agreement would have made some concession on that point.6
The haste and lack of forethought has even led to the overturn of ancient etiquette - the customary two week break between the Committee stage and the report being brought before the house was dropped entirely; this isn't unprecedented, and the recommendations being considered hadn't changed in the previous month, but it still shows the breakdown of tradition. There was also indication that certain lords were deliberately delaying proceedings in the committee stage7 in an attempt to delay the passing of the bill such that the referendum couldn't take place in May. And that, dear readers, it just not cricket.
Some lessons are already being learnt from all of this. Alex Salmond (First Minister of Scotland) said that he'd rather keep with a minority government over an unstable coalition8. Either situation has instabilities, and both situations will probably be a lot more likely given the upcoming change in the electoral system. However, both situations also slow the agenda of a party, something that is occasionally desirable. Today in England, we are still being governed by a leader who has no mandate from the electorate, but is limited by the likelihood of rebellion in the coalitions ranks.
- 1 ↑ Although, it is worth noting that under the statutory implements brought into force under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, we would first have to apply to form a protest near enough to parliament to actually throw the dynamite (something which may be changing in the near future). Even then, I suspect there would be issues about the legality of carrying dynamite through the streets of London.
- 2 ↑ http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/parliamentaryvotingsystemandconstituencies/stages.html
- 3 ↑ Citation Needed ;)
- 4 ↑ Publications have come out today, but I have yet to take the time to read them
- 5 ↑ I really want to meet the guy who writes the headlines for the BBC. Sometimes I wonder if he reads the articles. Sometimes I wonder if he deliberately makes them hard to read. Right now, I wonder why I chose 'he': possibly due to his choice of wording in some cases. Regardless, they're a troll and a nuisance.
- 6 ↑ Lord Anderson of Swansea (Labour), HL Deb, 7 February 2011, c17. Lord Anderson at TheyWorkForYou.com | Hansard Source
- 7 ↑ Citation needed - I haven't read the Hansard entries...too many of them
- 8 ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12426721