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Debate on Devolution - 21 July 2004

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Mr. David Curry (Skipton and Ripon): The only point on which I disagreed with my Front Benchers was the claim that apathy was rife. "Rife" suggests a certain enthusiasm and activity. In a sense, apathy is unrife: no one is very interested.

I occupied the Minister's position when we were trying to extricate ourselves from the problems of local government reorganisation and the Banham review. Looking at the Labour Benches, I have a feeling that the regional agenda is rapidly getting this Government into a situation analogous to ours then. They will be very glad when they can bail themselves out of it.

As I learned when I was trying to take an annuities Bill, which depended on calculations of life expectancy, through the House, life expectancy is overwhelmingly a function of income and education. Of course, on aggregate, certain regions will have a shorter life expectancy than others, but within the regions those in similar social circumstances are likely to have similar life expectancies.

Mr. Stringer: Have not various reports, from the 1981 Black report onwards, said the opposite—that when factors such as age and class are excluded, there are still regional disparities?

Mr. David Curry (Skipton and Ripon): That does not contradict what I said. It depends on the social and economic composition of the regions involved. I am merely saying that people in similar categories in different regions might well have the same life expectancy.

I feel that the Minister is trying to deliver a wholly undesirable outcome as honourably as possible. Of course, he has had a very busy week. I welcome his efforts to ensure that postal voting does not militate against convenience and equality of opportunity for people in rural areas, but we shall end up with a curious system. There will be peripatetic polling stations and, apparently, peripatetic welfare officers helping people to fill in their forms. Polling stations will open in different places. The outcome will be colourful at least. That does not alter the fact that there will be a denial of choice. Anyone who wants a postal vote can have one under the conventional manual system of voting. People have a free choice under that system. There is no analogy between that and the system that is proposed.

The Minister will be aware that, in other countries where postal voting has become the norm, in free elections, the turnout tends to revert to what it was before. The improvement in turnout tends to be temporary. That was the experience in Australia and New Zealand.

With low turnouts, there is always a danger of dealing with the problem by focusing on the process, whereas often the electorate are trying to tell us that we do not seem to be listening to them and that we are not responding to their needs—the substance of the politics needs to be addressed, rather than the process. Politicians may find that unwelcome. Sometimes, the messages are not congenial to hon. Members on both sides of the House. They just happen to be the truth.

The issue of the allocation of expenditure is serious. We discovered in the European elections that the proportional system of representation allowed the expression of a far more diverse range of views than under our traditional first past the post system. In my constituency, the three conventional parties, if I may describe them like that, performed roughly as one may have expected. However, the Green party had a significant vote, the BNP had a reasonably significant vote, and UKIP had a more significant vote, although not as much as in other parts of the country, such as the south-west. In some constituencies, it led the vote.

That means that the number of people contending for designation and the number of players in the campaign could represent a confused picture—quite a kaleidoscope. Because there is no consistency, views on this issue may cut across the normal alliances that one would expect to find on general issues. Therefore, it is possible that one could find oneself in a difficult situation where individuals or even unions seek to express themselves through a number of front organisations. The Electoral Commission would have to decide whether they could be designated. There could be a legal challenge to that designation. Curiously, the equivalent of hanging chads could arrive in our political system, with a great dislocation. I hope that the commission will be able to set out in advance some general principles or rules that it will apply, so that there can be some scrutiny to try to minimise the chances of being challenged on an ad hoc basis, according to who comes forward.

I have great respect for the Minister's honesty but, when he argues against a threshold, he is being perverse. He is saying that we must not set a negative target. Is he saying that he is unconfident of the vote and frightened that, if we set the target of a threshold, we will all set out not to vote in order not to hit the target?

When they decide not to vote, the British people have a powerful determination not to vote. When one canvasses, one finds people who are more resolute about not voting than some people are about voting. The best way to decide something is to vote on it. I will urge all my constituents to vote. Of course I shall tell them to vote no, because I do not want the reorganisation of local government that would be a consequence of a regional assembly, and I want to return power to traditional representative bodies. The Minister will know that yesterday I expressed again my personal belief that business rates should be returned to local government, so I am willing to take the necessary steps to make that a reality. However, we are not going to have a threshold, so there is no point in banging on about that. I will not go into the arguments for and against the assemblies because we have debated that. I am sure that we will get a chance to debate the powers. During the September session, everyone usually scrambles around to try to find something useful to do; this would be helpful.

The hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) once again used the wonderful phrase, "take control of their destiny." If he thinks that the assemblies will give anybody a handle on their destiny, he is living in a Harry Potteresque world that is a million miles removed from reality. Some might say that the assemblies will lead to some great destiny; others say that they will lead to precisely nothing. In my view, which is well known and frequently quoted—almost entirely by Members on the other side—they are neither "nowt nor summat", to use the great Yorkshire expression. While they are neither nowt nor summat, I want nothing to do with them and I hope that we will vote no tonight.

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David Curry MP | House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA | tel: 020 7219 6202