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Mr. Grieve: Would the hon. Gentleman care to share with us why he believes that a change in the voting system would alter his earlier arguments about regionalism and the West Lothian question?
Mr. Borrow: I said that the devolution debate would be protracted and evolutionary. If we addressed the West Lothian question during this Parliament, we would do so on the basis of the first-past-the-post system. I do not know what system the Electoral Reform Commission is likely to come up with, but that system may well affect the number of Members of Parliament representing different parts of the United Kingdom.
An interesting recent development is that proportional representation will be operating in the UK next year, and on a regional basis. That in itself will tend to strengthen regionalism and devolution in the coming years.
I shall mention briefly a point that may upset Conservative Members but which fits in with the constitutional agenda. Do they believe that power should be exercised as near as possible to the people, that it should be democratic and that there should be accountability? Those are reasons why I support strong
unitary local government, elected assemblies with revenue-raising powers, a change in the electoral system, and a change in the method of decision making in Europe. Decision making in Europe should be open, and it should be accountable through elected members from each member state, not determined by the Council of Ministers.
Dr. Julian Lewis:
Does the hon. Gentleman realise that, if proportional representation had operated in the general election of 1 May 1997, the Labour party, with 43 per cent. of the vote, would have been utterly dependent on a third party--presumably the Liberal Democrats--to form a Government? Does he believe that that would have given a more representative result than the actual result, in which the country's wish for a Labour Government was manifested by the realisation of a Labour Government?
Mr. Borrow:
The hon. Gentleman is assuming that, had we had a different voting system, people would have voted in the same way. All the evidence from 1 May is that the majority of the electorate wanted to get the Conservatives out of office and voted accordingly on the basis of each constituency. In some constituencies, that would mean that Labour supporters voted for the Liberal Democrat party or for one of the nationalist parties.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. This is a debate about a referendum for an English Parliament. It is not a debate about the voting system.
Mr. Borrow:
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry if I got carried away, but I believe the point is made that different voting systems produce different voting totals for different parties.
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey):
The hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Borrow) made a welcome and useful contribution to the debate; it was worth his overnight journey down from the north-west. The debate was triggered in a welcome way by the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman). The Bill asks two questions--should there be an English Parliament; and should we have a referendum--but leads to a series of linked questions, too.
I whole-heartedly support the Bill. I believe that there should be an English Parliament and that there should a referendum, which should have two questions, so my
cards are on the table. Many of the reasons given by the hon. Member for Billericay and the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) add weight to the argument for those changes. I hope that the House allows the Bill to proceed, because it would reflect badly on us, in the year in which we have been dealing with legislation to give Scotland its own Parliament and Wales its own assembly and to hold a referendum on London, if we said, when it came to England, "Sorry, England; this cannot go further."
I strongly believe that, as the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said, in this country constitutional change has been brought about by stop-go pressure instead of a coherent approach. It has troubled me since long before I was elected that the British constitution has never developed coherently. If we do not get a grip on that, as we need to, we shall continue with an enormous number of anomalies, which continue to produce an enormous number of unfair results.
In the 1980s, when Arthur Scargill and the miners' representatives met me to lobby about miners' issues, I said to them, "It is no good coming to me now to say that you do not like the Tory Government, because the electoral system gave you the Tory Government. If, 20 years ago, you had lobbied for a fair electoral system, you would not have this Government, because the policy of the day is a direct consequence of the constitutional settlement."
Majorities in this place reflect only the electoral system. That point was made in the intervention by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) on the hon. Member for South Ribble. If we had a system that reflected the public view, not only would there not be a Labour majority of 179, but there would be no Labour majority. There was no Labour majority in Britain at the recent general election. The country did not overwhelmingly vote for the Labour party: indeed, it clearly underwhelmingly voted for it. There may have been a desire for change--I take the point made by the hon. Member for South Ribble that, had we had a different system, the voting might have been different--but, on the evidence of the votes cast, the country did not want, by a majority, a Labour Government. That is indisputable; it was clear.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex):
I very much appreciate the hon. Gentleman's comment about the need for a coherent approach to constitutional reform. Will he explain his enthusiasm for an English Parliament alongside his colleagues' enthusiasm for regional development agencies, leading to, presumably, democracy in the regions, and are we to assume, therefore, that he wants a federal Parliament here, and elected regions, counties and districts? I appreciate that the Liberal Democrats have had some success in the local government elections in recent years, but is not this a bit over-indulgent?
Mr. Hughes:
That is a perfectly proper question, and I shall answer it, but let me finish another general point. We are in a time when each of the other countries of the United Kingdom--Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales--are going through a major change. We hope that in Northern Ireland that produces a new settlement; it clearly will in Scotland and Wales. We also have on the table the regional development agency approach in
I am English by birth, and Welsh, Scottish and English by background, so I may have some ability to understand the problems. I was born and first brought up in England, and then lived in Wales, and I have relatives in Scotland. The Liberal Democrats are in favour of a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Parliament with more power than the Government propose to provide, and traditionally have been in favour of English regional government. My party has not yet formally come out in favour of an English Parliament. I think that it is wrong about that.
I also think that it is wrong to pretend that English regions are equivalent to Scotland and Wales, which are countries. Yorkshire, the north-east and north-west are regions, which is not the same. It would be absolutely wrong to end up with a constitutional settlement that gave powers to the English regions equal to those given to Scotland or Wales. Northern Ireland is obviously anomalous, but it is the fourth component country of the United Kingdom, so should also have no equivalence to a region in England, which is a lesser creation. Northern Ireland requires its own settlement arrangement, although we appreciate the all-Ireland dimension.
Mr. Grieve:
I have listened to the hon. Gentleman with great interest, and agree with much of what he has said. How would he address the issue raised by the Government, which clearly has some force, about the problem of creating a federal construct with disparity between the constituent parts?
Mr. Hughes:
Given that you have enjoined us to be brief, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall press on, because I shall come shortly to the perfectly proper questions that have been put to me.
The present Parliament has three major constitutional flaws. First--and let us not mince our words--for years Scotland and Wales have been over-represented in the House of Commons. That is not fair, because it distorts election results. The Labour party benefits from that system, so it has defended it. It would be absolutely unacceptable if, after the Scottish Parliament had been given law-making powers, Scotland continued to be over-represented. Our party has said that there should be an appropriate reduced number of Scottish Members of Parliament, so that the ratio of electors to Members of Parliament became the same throughout the United Kingdom. There is no justification for a system that distorts the results. That will be even less acceptable when we have a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly.
The second way in which this place is rigged is the electoral system. I shall not today go over the debate on that, but suffice it to say that it is clearly unjustifiable that the results of general elections do not reflect the wishes of the majority of the British people. We have never had truly majority government since the war.
The third flaw is the other place, which distorts Parliament in a most bizarre and antiquated way. I hope that it is reformed quickly. I welcome the fact that a Cabinet Committee is looking into the matter. However, I hope that the Government do not replace hereditary peers by the patronage of the Prime Minister, because replacing people who get there by birth by people who get there by appointment is arguably even a step backwards, not forwards. At least by birth there is an accidental chance that there will be a fair spread of people, whereas by patronage there is no accident at all. The other place should be all elected, lovely and antiquated though it now is. My godfather turned out accidentally to be a peer--he woke up one morning and found he was a peer because his cousin had died. The other place is an anomaly and should go.
If we had an English Parliament, the easy way forward would be for the English Members of the United Kingdom Parliament to sit as English parliamentarians. That is easy and straightforward. We, the English Members, who represent English seats, could conduct English business. There would be no extra expense, no new Chamber and no new bureaucracy would be required. To start with, we could sit on days when the United Kingdom Parliament did not sit.
The reason why we should do that touches on the West Lothian question and related questions. The settlement of money for English local government is entirely and uniquely English business, and should be of no constitutional interest to the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish, other than for observation and comparison. Such business should be decided by English Members of Parliament. There is no reason why sports policy and arts policy and many other matters should not be decided by English Members.
If we wanted occasionally to sit in York or somewhere else, that would be fine by me. I am conscious that this is a country weighted towards the south-east, and as someone who was born in the north, I believe that we should correct that. We do not have to sit in London all the time, but nor do we have to build a great new building. We could sit in the free trade hall in Manchester, or in York, which was a former capital city, or in Winchester or wherever.
We should also be conscious of the fact that if we had an English Parliament, that would not necessarily mean that we should or should not have regional government. That is a separate question. My party believes that we should have regional government, and I happen to share that view. I do not think that my formula of English Members of Parliament sitting as the English Parliament produces a duplication of representation. The case for regional government in England is strong, although I accept the point made earlier that the one area that is difficult to define as a region is the south-east. Whereas the north-west, north-east, Yorkshire, south-west, west midlands, east midlands and London are fairly obvious regions, the south-east is more complicated. Is it logical for Buckinghamshire and Kent to be in the same region?
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