Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse is very keen that no-one should forget how important he is.
This afternoon there was a joint meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority’s Strategic and Operational Policing Committee and Finance and Resources Committee. Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse sat in on the meeting. This is not his usual practice but BBC London (with camera) were in attendance and he no doubt wanted to keep an eye on the LibDem AMs* who were grandstanding for a wider audience.
However, he clearly felt it important that in putting his name on the Members’ signing-on sheet he should emphaasise his special status: so against his name he described himself (in block capitals) as ‘CHAIR OF THE ENTIRE AUTHORITY’. A new title, but it leaves us in no doubt …

*Caroline Pidgeon is particularly keen to secure the top position on the LibDems London-wide Assembly list.

About eighteen months ago, I attended a meeting on the possible effects of electro-magnetic pulses on electrical and technical systems.  As I commented at the time:

“And as if the threat from a rogue state or terrorists was not enough, electromagnetic pulses can occur naturally as part of solar activity. Avi Schnurr quoted the US National Academy of Sciences as warning that solar activity can produce effects of equivalent magnitude and does so approximately every hundred years or so.  The last such massive solar surge was in 1859 and shorted out telegraph wires and caused widespread fires.  The next occasion when there might be such a surge is 2012 (although it might not be the big one, but that is when the next peak of solar activity is anticipated).”

The BBC reports today that:

“The Sun has unleashed its strongest flare in four years, observers say.

The eruption is a so-called X-flare, the strongest type; such flares can affect communications on Earth.

Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft recorded an intense flash of extreme ultraviolet radiation emanating from a sunspot.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) has issued a geomagnetic storm warning, and says observers might be able to see aurorae from the northern UK.

The monster flare was recorded at 0156 GMT on 15 February and directed at the Earth.

Preliminary data from the Stereo-B and Soho spacecraft suggest that the explosion produced a fast but not particularly bright coronal mass ejection (CME) – a burst of charged particles released into space.”

The report goes on:

“Displays of the Northern Lights (aurora borealis) have already been seen further south than usual in Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the UK. And further solar activity is expected over the next few days.

Researchers say the Sun has been awakening after a period of several years of low activity.”

Is it time to get worried?

A few months I asked a Parliamentary Question about all this:

“Lord Harris of Haringey

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what were the outcomes of the workshop on severe space weather and the threat of a major electromagnetic pulse announced by Baroness Neville-Jones at the Electric Infrastructure Security summit in September. [HL3149]

The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones): The Cabinet Office workshop held on 21 September 2010 was attended by representatives from the communications, transport and energy sectors, government, regulators, and space weather experts from both the UK and the US. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the likelihood and severity of future space weather events and the impact on infrastructure.

The meeting discussed how a reasonable worst case scenario could be formulated, based on historical data. A newly formed space environmental impact experts group (SEIEG) is now working with Cabinet Office to formulate quantitative assessments of the reasonable worst case scenario of the different solar phenomena that comprise a severe space weather event.”

So the good news (heavy irony) is that the Government may have got round to working out what “the reasonable worst case scenario” might be.

The Government has secured a narrow victory on the second of the issues where the House of Commons has rejected amendments passed by the Lords to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. 

Last week, the House of Lords voted to allow the Boundary Commission in exceptional circumstances to permit a constituency to be as much as 7.5% above or below the population quota if that is necessary to create a viable, ie workable, constituency. 

On that occasion, the vote was 275 in favour of the amendment and 257 against.  Today, the vote was much closer: 241 in favour to 242 against.

This means that only one issue goes back to the House of Commons – the 40% threshhold.  If they reaffirm the Government’s position, then the matter will return to the Lords at around 9pm tonight.

It will be interesting to see what the Government does with 28 of their backbenchers (27 Tories and one Liberal Democrat) rebelling.  The Conservative rebels were:

The House of Lords has just reconsidered the first of the issues where the House of Commons has rejected amendments passed by the Lords to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.
And it is becoming clear that even Government back-benchers (or at least Tory ones) are beginning to realise that the Government’s Bill is deeply flawed.
The issue debated was whether there should be a requirement for a minimum turnout of 40% before a ‘Yes’ vote AUTOMATICALLY – without further Parliamentary debate – leads to the introduction of AV. When the Lords considered this point before, a threshhold was put in the Bill by a majority of just one vote. Yesterday, the House of Commons voted after an hour’s debate to take the threshhold out of the Bill again.
The House of Lords has now voted to put the threshhold back in – but this time by 277 votes to 215 – a majority of 62.
And what was significant was that a string of senior Tory back-benchers – including former Cabinet members, like Lords Lawson, Lamont and Forsyth – now spoke in favour of the threshhold.

The House of Commons is currently debating the amendments made to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill by the House of Lords.  The Government is intending to oppose virtually all of the changes on which they were defeated in the Lords – in particular, the 40% threshhold on the AV referendum and the 7.5% tolerance around the electoral quota.

So what are they ready to concede?

The Deputy Prime Minister has tabled an amendment to the Lords change to the Bill (originally proposed by Lord Fowler) that set out the principle that it would be wrong for any Parliamentary constituency to link the Isle of Wight to the English mainland.  Norman Fowler’s amendment proposed a single (over-size) constituency for the Isle of Wight.

And the Deputy Prime Minister’s concession?

There should be two (under-size) constituencies for the Isle of Wight.

Two safe Coalition seats rather than one*.

Did anyone ever doubt that this Bill was about gerrymandering?

*At the last General Election the combined Conservative and LibDem vote amounted to 78.3%.

I have tabled a Parliamentary Question to ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration have Ministers given to mitigating the security issues surrounding the location in St Pancras of the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation and its laboratories that will be working with highly dangerous viruses?

This follows reports that:

“One of Britain’s leading bio-scientists .. [has] .. voiced fears over the safety of a £600 million virus “superlab” planned for St Pancras.

Professor Guy Dodson, who has worked at Oxford University, warned that the 14-storey, maximum security site containing viruses including malaria, tuberculosis, bird and swine flu, cancer cells and HIV would need to be “bulletproof”.”

UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation is to be built in London on the redeveloped St Pancras site.  In principle, this is excellent news.  However, the laboratory could be a magnet for terrorists.

As Guy Dodson comments:

 ”The issues are if you have an earthquake, some idiot lets a bomb off or there’s a fire at St Pancras International.

“These are extreme examples but you don’t want that building to suffer a serious knockabout when you’ve got this material in there.

“The unspoken concern is terrorism because it’s a natural target. We need to know the capacity they have for dealing with the unexpected.”

The plans have been approved by Mayor Boris Johnson – so that’s all right then ……

There is an arrogance about the Conservative Coalition, especially in respect of those who will bear the brunt of their policies. 

There could not be a starker illustration of this than the story in today’s Sun, “Heroes sacked by email“, which reports that:

“TROOPS were stunned yesterday after 38 senior heroes including one on the Afghan front line were crassly sacked by EMAIL.

The shocked men – all warrant officers – were informed they were victims of defence cuts.

Each got an impersonal message advising them: “Start planning your resettlement.” One stormed: “I thought it was a joke.”

The MoD was branded “shameful and callous”.

The group, who all have more than 20 years’ service, includes a Royal Tank Regiment veteran unceremoniously dumped while serving on the frontline in Afghanistan. Another – who risked his life doing FIVE warzone tours – said: “It was out of the blue. We’re disgusted.

“Essentially 38 of us are ‘sacked’ having spent our lives in the military. It’s not good – five tours of duty and sacked by email.”"

Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy has responded to the news, saying the soldiers had been treated in a “callous, cold-hearted, soulless” way and called on ministers to take responsibility for the incident.

“We can’t halt every redundancy in the armed forces, but this is no way to treat men and women who have served their country fearlessly for so many years,” he told the BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.

“Sacking anybody by e-mail is wrong, but sacking our armed forces in this way is absolutely unforgivable.”

Is he bothered?

Are they bothered?

Expect more of this.

It is the Third Day of the Report Stage consideration by the House of  Lords of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill and the Government has suffered a serious defeat in another record turnout of Peers.

The issue was an amendment proposed by Lord Pannick, a Cross-bench Peer, that has the effect of allowing the Boundary Commission in exceptional circumstances to permit a constituency to be as much as 7.5% above or below the population quota if that is necessary to create a viable, ie workable, constituency.

He was supported – inter alia – by speeches from two former Secretaries to the Cabinet, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster and Lord Butler of Brockwell.

The result of the vote was 275 in favour of the amendment and 257 against – a total vote of 532, exceeding yesterday’s record.  82 Cross-benchers and unalligned Peers supported the amendment (with 11 against).  Five Bishops also voted – splitting three to two in favour of the amendment.

The Third Reading of the Bill is now likely to take place on Monday – another breach of the Conventions of the House, as the normal procedures would have the Third Reading at least a day later.  The House of Commons will consider the Lords amendments on Tuesday and, assuming the Government reverses the Lords’ changes, the Bill will be back in the Lords next Wednesday.  And then, potentially we are into “ping pong” …..

It is the Second Day of the Report Stage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.  Yesterday, in a very tight vote the Government was defeated by 219 votes to 218 on the issue of whether there should be a minimum turnout requirement before the referendum vote on the alternative vote would be binding.

There has just been another very close vote with an even higher turnout of members of the House of Lords.  This time the Government won by 266 votes to 262.  The issue was whether there should be local inquiries into the recommendation of the Boundary Commission on particular constituency boundaries.  In the Committee Stage the Government had promised that they would bring forward their own amendments to make this possible (this was the offer that helped bring the Committee Stage proceedings to a close after seventeen days of detailed consideration of the Bill).  In the event, the Government’s proposals were so weak and watery (it in practice only provides for the Boundary Commission to hold some public hearings) that there was a widespread feeling in the House that the Government had reneged on their promise – hence the amendment to strengthen the arrangements which was in the end narrowly defeated.

What is notable is the size of the vote: 528 members of the House voted (more than two-thirds of the House).  This is almost certainly the highest number of votes cast since most of  the hereditary peers lost their right to sit and vote in the House.  And it approaches the  record vote on the ratification of the Maastrict treaty, when a total of 621 Members voted in a division on the European Communities (Amendment) Bill on 14 July 1993 – and that was the largest recorded vote since 1831.

The figures, of course, reflect the wholesale creation of new members of the House of Lords since the Conservative Coalition was formed last May – 88 so far with more to come.

The procedural truce in the House of Lords looks likely to break down big time next week.

Thomas Galloway Dunlop du Roy de Blicquy Galbraith, 2nd Baron Strathclyde and Leader of the House of Lords, has tabled the Report Stage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. 

Those who thought that it was all over bar the shouting when the Committee Stage consideration finally finished after seventeen days (and nights) of discussion last Wednesday are in for a rude awakening (if that is the right word).

With a cavalier disregard for the conventions of the House, Lord Strathclyde has pressed ahead with the Report Stage immediately.  He has also announced that the Third Reading is scheduled to take place on Monday 14th February.

The Companion to the Standing Orders is very clear on the conventions that should have been followed:

“8.03  The following minimum intervals between stages of public bills should be observed:

(a)  two weekends between the first reading (whether of a new bill or one brought from the Commons) and the debate on second reading;

(b)  fourteen days between second reading and the start of the committee stage;

(c)  on all bills of considerable length and complexity, fourteen days between the end of the committee stage and the start of the report stage;

(d)  three sitting days between the end of the report stage and third reading.”

There is no doubt that, at 305 pages and dealing with the kind of constitutional issues which are at its heart, the PVSC Bill meets the test of ‘considerable length and complexity’.

The purpose of these rules is not to delay governments trying to get legislation through the House. The purpose of these rules is to give Members of the House, as well as all sides of the House and all Members particularly interested in a piece of legislation, time to consider the issues raised at the committee stage, and to draw up amendments to bring issues to closure at report stage.

So that is TWO breaches of the conventions and rules of the House.

In addition, it is customary not to schedule business on a particular Bill on consecutive days without the agreement of the Opposition – particularly if the sessions concerned are likely to be lengthy.

And there is still a lot to do on this Bill.

Again the normal custom is that a Bill’s Report stage takes around half the length of the Committee stage (reflecting the fact that some issues will have been resoved during the Committee stage or because the Government has agreed to take on board some of the concerns about the Bill).  On that analysis, it might have been expected that at least six (and probably eight) days would have been scheduled for the Report stage – yet only three days are planned.

It has been estimated that between twenty or thirty substantive issues still need to be resolved.

These include such matters as:

• the date of the AV referendum (is it right that it should coincide with local government elections in some parts of England, but not all, and should it take place on the same day as elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections – all scheduled for 5th May this year);
• what limits should there be on spending by the “Yes” and “No” campaigns;
• should there be a threshold in the turnout required for a valid “yes” vote (as Mayor Boris Johnson is proposing for strike ballots);
• should the referendum be compulsory or advisory (previous referenda have always been advisory – allowing Parliament to legislate after a “Yes” vote on the details of Scottish and Welsh devolution, the powers of the London Mayor etc – this one would be compulsory, so a “Yes” vote will mean that the system will automatically change without further discussion on the detail);
• what flexibility (if any) should the Boundary Commission have on the strict numerical size of electoral constituencies for the House of Commons;
• what is the correct size of the House of Commons (it is currently 650, the Conservative manifesto proposed 585, the LibDem manifesto suggested 500, the Bill fixes the number at 600 without any rationale – leaving the Government open to the accusation that the number has been chosen because it inflicts more net damage on the Labour Party than any of the other options);
• should constituency boundaries cross county boundaries;
• should the same rules apply in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as in England;
• what should be done about those areas of the country where there is clear evidence that the electoral register under records those eligible to vote;
• should there be an adjustment in the number of Ministers in the House of Commons to avoid the Executive having even greater domination there with a reduced number of back-bench MPs;
• when should the first boundary review on the new rules be completed;
• will there be a proper provision for public inquiries into contested boundary reviews (the Government has promised that there will be some changes to the Bill to allow this, but the draft amendment has not yet been tabled – this was the concession that helped produce an armistice between the Government and Opposition at the end of the Committee stage); and
• what should be the frequency of constituency boundary reviews (the Bill proposes that this should happen every five years or once each Parliament – meaning that MPs will continually be fighting each other for the right to contest particular seats).

These are all substantive and serious issues.  They will all take time for debate.  Even if each of the issues identified was debated for only an hour and a half (and it is unlikely to be any less) and then voted on (which takes another fifteen minutes or so), twenty to thirty substantive issues will take around 40  to 60 hours to deal with – suggesting that each of the three days business will continue till around 4am (if there are only twenty issues) or 11am (for thirty issues).

And that is without anyone trying to waste time or delay the progress of the Bill.

This is not a sensible way of carrying out the proper scrutiny that a constitutional Bill such as this deserves.

And this Bill needs such scrutiny.  After all this Bill has had no green paper preceding it, no white paper preceding it, no pre-legislative scrutiny, and no public consultation – yet it is a piece of legislation which will decisively change some of the fundamental elements of our constitutional and Parliamentary arrangements.