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By Ned Simons - 18th January 2011
The Opposition have dragged their heels; they have had their fun; it is now time for this House to behave responsibly
Lord Strathclyde
The House of Lords sat through the night as peers debated plans to change the voting system and cut the number of MPs, amid accusations that Labour were attempting to block the coalition's flagship piece of legislation.
The 9th committee day of debate of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill began at 3.30pm yesterday and was not adjourned until 12.55pm this afternoon.
Peers will return to the chamber to begin the 10th day in committee later today.
The government scheduled three days of debate on the Bill in an attempt to see its legislation pass and beds have been set up in parts of the parliamentary estate in order to accommodate peers needing a quick nap.
Labour has been accused of trying to filibuster the Bill in order to scupper plans to hold a referendum on changing the voting system on May 5.
The flagship coalition Bill needs to be passed by February 16 if a referendum is to be held on May 5 as the Electoral Commission has ruled that it needs three months to prepare for the vote.
While Labour leader Ed Miliband has said he supports a change in the voting system from first past the post to the Alternative Vote the party is unhappy with the second part of the Bill, which would see the number of MPs cut from 650 to 600 and the size of constituencies equalized.
Labour has said they believe the coalition is attempting to "gerrymander" constituency boundaries in order to see more Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs elected to Parliament.
Writing in ePolitix.com's sister publication The House Magazine, shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan said the argument that UK voters are overrepresented was "simply exaggerated" and accused the government of pushing through a "partisan" Bill.
"The government says that we need to stem the inflation in the number of MPs and rectify the over-representation in our parliamentary system," he said.
"But the facts simply don’t support this. In 1922, we had 615 MPs for an electorate of 21,000,000. By 2005, there were 646 MPs for 44,245,000 voters."
As the debate continued this morning Labour peer Lord Peston attacked the government for blaming the Opposition for the trouble it was having with the Bill.
He said the legislation was the "beginning and end of everything going wrong" with the House of Lords and attacked the coalition for pursuing an irrational approach to the Bill.
"What's gone wrong with this Bill is the government's fault," he said.
He added: "I was a boy during the war in London, I lived in the blitz, we didn’t accept defeat then, and on our side we don’t intend to accept defeat now".
Opening yesterday's debate Lord Strathclyde chastised Labour peers for dragging their heels when debating the Bill, noting that last week peers spent six hours debating two amendments.
"That is not good scrutiny; there is no precedent for moving so slowly," the Conservative leader of the House of Lords said.
"The Opposition have dragged their heels; they have had their fun; it is now time for this House to behave responsibly."
But Lord Falkner said Labour would be happy to see the Bill split in two, allowing the referendum to take place while subjecting the part of the Bill which dealt with re-drawing the electoral map to greater parliamentary scrutiny.
And he said that if the government failed to heed peers concerns about the cut in the size of the Commons then Labour would continue to obstruct the Bill.
He said: "If the government insist on their timetabling arrangements, then we have no option but to do all in our power to ensure that the Bill does get proper scrutiny and therefore that it will not receive Royal Assent by February 16 if it still contains Part 1 and Part 2."
After many hours of debate the former constitutional affairs secretary attempted to adjourn proceedings until later today after peers spent almost three hours discussing an amendment.
He said there was no urgent need for the part of the Bill aimed at reducing the size of the Commons to be debated "in the dead of night" and added: "I don't believe that this is the appropriate way for us to conduct business."
With the debate becoming increasingly fractious Liberal Democrat Lord Greaves appealed for calm.
He said: "It's time that everybody around the House just calmed down a little bit, in particular those Lords who think it's reasonable to spend 12 hours...on three amendments."
Speaking today Lord Strathclyde said Labour had no right to demand the government compromise on its plans as the coalition had not lost a vote on the issue.
He described the demands as a "most bizarre" concept that he had not heard of before.
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