Clause 11: Simple majority system to be used in elections for
certain offices Amendment 134 Moved by Baroness Hayman of Ullock
134: Clause 11, page 12, line 35, at end insert— “(6A) Subsections
(1) to (6) expire 10 days after the next elections for Mayor of
London after this Act is passed.”Member’s explanatory statement
This probing amendment would mean that the simple majority system
is only used for the next Mayor of London election....Request free trial
Clause 11: Simple majority system to be used in elections for
certain offices
Amendment 134
Moved by
of Ullock
134: Clause 11, page 12, line 35, at end insert—
“(6A) Subsections (1) to (6) expire 10 days after the next
elections for Mayor of London after this Act is passed.”Member’s
explanatory statement
This probing amendment would mean that the simple majority system
is only used for the next Mayor of London election.
of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group. The first
two, Amendments 134 and 135, are designed to probe the fact that
the Government have changed the voting system for the next Mayor
of London election and other mayoral elections—my amendment
specifically uses that example—and for police and crime
commissioner elections. I want to probe the reasons why the
Government have decided to make these changes and why they were
included so late during the progress of the Bill. I look forward
to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, when he speaks
further on this although I will make my own comments on our
concerns more broadly about Clause 11.
Clause 11 was inserted, as I am sure noble Lords are aware,
during Committee stage in the House of Commons and proposes
changing the voting system for all PCCs, combined authority and
local authority mayoral, and London mayoral elections to a first
past the post system. It was not included when the Bill Committee
took evidence on the Bill. In fact, my honourable friend actually made a point of order to the chair during
the committee’s evidence sessions to ask whether the committee
could take evidence from witnesses on the issue of electoral
systems. The chair was very clear in saying that that was out of
the scope of the Bill and so committee members were not able to
take evidence on electoral systems.
The Government’s intention to include this change, despite this,
was announced in a Written Ministerial Statement after the then
Minister, , had given her oral evidence
to PACAC; this was after evidence to PACAC and after evidence to
the Bill Committee. PACAC then received correspondence from
several combined authority mayors who made it crystal clear that
the inclusion of this change to the electoral system in the
Elections Bill came as a complete surprise to them and they felt
that they and their local communities had not been consulted
properly on the proposed changes.
For example, , mayor of South Yorkshire, said:
“The government has not consulted with local communities on this
major change, even though the last time a government proposed a
reform of the electoral system they put it to a referendum.
Greater local consultation would have been carried out for a
mid-sized infrastructure project than they have offered for a
major constitutional change.”
Similarly, Jamie Driscoll, mayor of North of Tyne Combined
Authority, expressed concern about the topdown way this change
was being made. He said:
“As a matter of principle major constitutional changes should not
be imposed on local areas without full consultation and without
taking into account local preferences. To do otherwise runs
directly counter to the principle of local control which
devolution is meant to enshrine, and inevitably fuels cynicism
and growing loss of trust in our democracy.”
Andy , mayor of Greater Manchester
Combined Authority, disagreed with the Government’s assertion
that voters are confused by the current supplementary system. He
further stated:
“The Government has also argued that it wants to bring these
elections in line with other English or UK-wide elections.
However, the comparison between Mayoral elections and those of
MPs or local councillors is a false one. As Mayor, I am elected
as an individual executive decision-maker, not to be part of a
wider legislature. That difference is important and drives the
need for a different electoral system.”
The view that the supplementary vote system was a positive one
for the role of mayor was also expressed by , mayor of the West of England Combined Authority. He
believes it is important that the present supplementary voting
method allows voters to express a second preference if no
candidate receives 50% of the vote because
“this ensures that a candidate must have a larger base of support
to win”
and is
“more helpful to the democratic process”.
The London mayor is also concerned. He is particularly concerned
because the moves in this Bill would overturn the 1998 Greater
London Authority referendum result which specifically described
the supplementary vote system that Londoners voted overwhelmingly
in favour of. All previous London mayors won more votes than any
other candidate in the first round, so the mayor is also not
convinced that changing to first past the past would have given
different results.
The conclusion in PACAC’s report said:
“Regardless of the benefits or disadvantages of the changes made
by the Bill to the electoral system for those offices, the manner
in which the proposed legislative change was brought about is
unsatisfactory. Making changes such as this after the Bill has
been introduced and debated at Second Reading is disrespectful to
the House.”
It is disappointing that the Government’s response to PACAC’s
report did not address this comment. I know that the Minister is
a decent person. Does he agree that the way these changes were
introduced was disrespectful to the House? Does he agree that
this disrespectful attitude is compounded by the fact that this
is an elections Bill—a Bill of constitutional importance that
requires those in power to behave with the highest respect for
due process in order to protect our democracy and trust in
government.
The Minister may well say this is a manifesto commitment, as was
said in the other place. Yet while the manifesto includes
commitments to strengthen the accountability of
elected Police and Crime
Commissioners and to continue to support first past the
post, it does in fact reverse the 2017 manifesto pledge to impose
first past the post in elections that currently use proportional
systems. So that was a previous manifesto pledge, from 2017,
overturned in 2019.
Amendment 144D in the name of the noble Lord, , would enable returning officers
to provide for early voting where they believe it would improve
participation. I note that the Welsh Government have developed
flexible voting pilot schemes that will take place at the local
government elections, in four areas in Wales, this coming May. It
will be interesting to read the Electoral Commission’s
independent evaluation of the impact and effectiveness of these
schemes, which I understand is due to be published in August
2022. I look forward to hearing further from the noble Lord,
, on that amendment, and to the
Minister’s response to my questions. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees () (Con)
The noble Lord, , is taking part
remotely, and I now invite him to speak.
(Lab) [V]
My Lords, this is a particularly difficult issue for me. I
strongly support the deletion of Clause 11; it is no more than an
attempt to abolish an electoral system that has stood the test of
time so as to secure an electoral advantage for the
Conservatives. The Government are effectively seeking to corrupt
a system that is fair and, in the absence of full proportional
representation, more proportionally reflects the opinion of the
wider electorate.
The Conservatives have always opposed the supplementary vote
system since its birth as it challenges the Conservative bias
built into the first past the post electoral system—nothing more
and nothing less than that. They have opposed it for over 20
years. I know, because I designed it, researched it, named it,
wrote the original paper advocating it, gave evidence to the
Plant commission advising its introduction, and saw it through to
its introduction by the Labour Government. I brought in Professor
Patrick Dunleavy from the London School of Economics—a
world-renowned academic known for his independence of mind—to
approve it as it developed. At every stage, to validate it, we
did thousands of runs under different scenarios on a computer in
the House of Commons Library when I was an MP. We spent 12 months
working on it; Patrick Dunleavy gave it the academic approval and
credibility that I lacked.
The driver behind all the work was that any system that totally
ignores the centre vote in British politics, essentially a
Liberal Democrat vote, will inevitably favour the minority right.
First past the post helps in the election of Conservative
Governments. If the Conservatives thought for one moment that
there was some electoral advantage in AV, SV, AMS, STV or any
form of this system, I believe they would support reform of the
electoral system.
There was a very interesting article in a recent issue of
Prospect magazine on mayoral elections by Stephen Fisher,
associate professor in political sociology at Trinity College,
Oxford. He carried out research into the use of the supplementary
vote. He noted first that 41% of the people in England now live
in areas where SV is now in use for one election or another.
5.00pm
He also found that Conservatives suffer under systems where
second preferences influence results: they rarely pick up more
second-preference transfer votes than their rivals. As he put it
in the article,
“Conservatives were typically trounced on transfers.”
The response to all that from Mr Rees-Mogg, the Member of
Parliament, was characteristically disingenuous, when he stated
that
“first-past-the-post is better for democracy because the most
popular candidate wins.”
Tell that to the people of Inverness, who, in 1974, elected an MP
on 32% of the vote. Even the Liberals, who were the winners, were
discreetly embarrassed by that result, although to be fair, they
went on to win substantial majorities in subsequent elections in
other Scottish seats.
Stephen Fisher’s succinct response to all this is more honest,
when he states:
“What is clear … is that unless a lot changes in the structure of
party preferences, a switch from the supplementary vote to
first-past-the-post would benefit Conservative candidates in
England and Wales.”
Therein lies the truth. The whole supplementary vote reform
agenda is being driven by political advantage to the
Conservatives. I hope that the next Labour or coalition
Government have the courage to reverse this act of gerrymander
and corruption of the electoral system.
I see no merit in arguing the merits of the system in today’s
debate. They are well documented, and many researchers have
carried out a lot of work over the last 20-odd years on the
system as it has developed. However, I will say a few words about
the Government’s preliminary response at Second Reading, and I
call in aid the work of two academics, Professor Alan Renwick of
University College London, and researcher Alejandro
Castillo-Powell, both of whom have considerable reputations in
this area. In a paper published by the Constitution Unit, they
challenged every assertion made by the Government on the efficacy
of the system.
The Minister, who is in his place today and who will answer this
debate, set out a very carefully drafted critique at Second
Reading, which I will quote. I presume that it was written for
him—he probably did not do a lot of work to establish to what
extent it was a correct interpretation of what is happening. He
said:
“The Electoral Commission added that the rejection rate in May
2021 was 0.8% for local council elections; for Police and Crime
Commissioners it was 2.7%; and it was 4.3% for the Mayor of
London. In the 2021 London mayoral elections, conducted by
supplementary vote, almost 5% of the total votes in the first
round were rejected—114,000 ballots. In the second preference,
265,000 votes were invalidated. That is more votes than were
validly transferred to the leading two candidates”.—[Official
Report, 23/2/22; col. 315.]
The response of the academics to all this has been very carefully
laid out. How do they respond? Their view is this:
“The most detailed explanation for the change given so far
appeared in a press release”—
from Ministers—
“which gave five arguments for the switch: (1) SV increases the
number of spoilt ballots; (2) it allows ‘loser’ candidates to
win; (3) FPTP improves accountability by ‘making it easier for
voters to express a clear choice’; (4) FPTP ‘is the world’s most
widely used electoral system’; and (5) SV is ‘an anomaly’ and
‘out of step with other elections in England’.”
Let me take those one by one.
Does a supplementary vote lead to more spoilt ballots? We admit
that elections using SV in the UK have typically high numbers of
spoilt ballot papers, compared with those using first past the
post. The response from the academics who have researched this in
detail is that SV showing higher rates of rejected ballots does
not mean that SV itself is necessarily the culprit.
The jump in such ballots in this year’s London mayoral elections
points to another factor: ballot paper design—an issue I was
always on about. The Electoral Commission notes the use in that
contest of a new untested design, split over two columns because
of the large number of candidates, which voters described as
being confusing and complex. Poor design similarly led to more
spoiled ballots in the 2007 Scottish local and parliamentary
elections. Another factor may be the deliberate spoiling of
ballot papers. The Electoral Commission noted anecdotal evidence
of this in the 2012 PCC elections.
I have argued since day one, right back to the days of the Labour
Government, that there were problems with the design of ballot
papers. I put up an alternative model. The academics supported my
view of the simpler model, but it was decided to proceed on the
basis of the ballot paper that was subsequently approved. SV
elections see more spoiled ballots than FPTP elections, but
improved ballot paper design and clearer guidance for voters
would ameliorate the problem.
Does the supplementary vote allow loser candidates to win? This
is the other accusation that was made. The Government’s second
argument is that under SV loser candidates can win on second
preferences, but that argument is circular. Such candidates are
losers only under the rules of first past the post. Take this
year’s north Wales PCC election. On first preferences, the
Conservative candidate won 32% of the votes, the Labour candidate
won 29% and the Plaid Cymru candidate won 28%. With such numbers
it is quite possible that most voters preferred either the Labour
or Plaid Cymru candidate over the Conservative. The latter was
not the self-evident winner. In fact, under SV many Plaid Cymru
voters expressed a second preference and two-thirds of them chose
the Labour candidate, giving them the victory. It is not obvious
why that was wrong.
Would the Government be happy if a candidate with 32% won the
election? I do not think so. I do not think it is credible and I
do not think the electorate think it is credible when a candidate
with 32% of the poll wins the election.
In reality, the choice between SV and FPTP does not actually
affect the result very often. Alan Renwick’s analysis suggests
that the allocation of second preferences has affected the result
in 8% of SV elections since its introduction in 2000. In other
words, it removes the results that lack credibility, which are on
the margins, and replaces them with results that are
credible.
Does the supplementary vote harm accountability? Ministers in
their press release last month said that first past the post
would improve “accountability” and
“make it easier for voters to express a clear”
preference. The academics respond that under first past the post
electors have to work out who has the greater chance of success.
It is not obvious how forcing voters into such difficult
calculations empowers them to express a clear choice.
I will deal with the claim that
“First Past the Post is the world’s most widely used electoral
system”.
That is just plain wrong; it is just not true. For national
legislative elections, first past the post is the second most
common system, used in only 28% of countries, behind list
proportional representation, used in 39%. The great majority of
countries with elections to executive offices eschew first past
the post in favour of a system that allows second preferences to
be counted.
Then there is the claim that the supplementary vote is an anomaly
in the UK. The government press release described the use of SV
for mayoral and PCC elections as an “anomaly.” That is true, in
the sense that these are the only public elections in England to
use this system. However, all the main political parties use
preferential voting systems to choose their leaders: Labour and
the Liberal Democrats use AV; the Conservatives use an exhaustive
ballot, whittling the candidates down to two before a final
run-off. Why such voting systems are right for these elections
but not for public elections is unclear.
Finally, I turn to the discussion of the AV referendum result.
The Government’s final argument is that the reform reflects that
transferable voting systems were rejected by the British people
in the 2011 nationwide referendum. Voters did indeed vote against
the introduction of AV for elections to the House of Commons by
an overwhelming 68% to 32%. But that was AV. AV is not SV. I have
never supported AV. It works in a completely different way from
SV. It gives weight to overdiluted preferences—one, two, three,
four, five, whatever—which, in my view, the public will never
accept. That was why SV was designed: to avoid that very
problem.
I refer to the final comments of the authors to whom I have been
referring:
“SV elections in the UK are associated with slightly higher rates
of rejected ballots than are FPTP elections. But no other
plausible argument for switching to FPTP has been given. Indeed,
the case in terms of clear accountability runs the other way. In
this circumstance, it would be better to seek improvements to the
operation of SV, rather than abandon it.”
In other words, look again at the format and design of the ballot
paper, which is what I have argued for 20-odd years.
Furthermore, unilateral adoption of electoral reform by one party
is always problematic. The risk is that the party will fix the
rules to suit its own interest—and that is exactly what is going
on in this debate. Let the public out there be in no doubt: this
is an electoral fix by the Government to have an electoral system
which they know positively favours them. Some form of independent
review, such as the citizens’ assembly posited by an amendment
previously defeated in Committee, should always be held first.
That should be followed by thorough parliamentary scrutiny, which
has always been curtailed in this case by the late introduction
of proposals through amendments, to which my noble friend Lady
Hayman referred in her very interesting contribution.
The Government’s actions have been reckless—are reckless. They
have produced no evidence whatever of the need for change. The
only complaints I have ever heard in 20-odd years have come from
Conservative councillors who have found it difficult to come to
terms with losing their seats on minority votes, where, clearly,
they simply did not have the votes to win.
The Government are destroying a system that is credible and which
works. As I said, I hope that one day, a Labour or coalition
Government will bring it back, because it is what the people want
and like.
(CB)
It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, , with his passion and
analysis, which was evident even through the screen.
I speak to support Clause 11 not standing part of the Bill. In
doing so, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local
Government Association and an adviser to a number of metro mayors
and mayors, as set out in my entry in the register of
interests.
In support of my view that the clause should not stand part, I
shall speak about three issues. First, this proposed change
cannot be regarded as a manifesto commitment; secondly, there is
the lack of any meaningful consultation on the change; and
thirdly, a proportional voting system is right for these
particular posts, regardless of whether you support proportional
representation in general or for local elections. I apologise in
advance that this will be a longer Committee speech than is
perhaps normal. However, the issues at stake here are so
fundamental to the way we do business in a properly functioning
democracy that they need to be set out at length.
5.15pm
I shall start with the question of the manifesto commitment. The
Government have asserted that this proposed change was a
commitment in the 2019 general election manifesto. Having
explored the issue in some depth, I am very clear that that is
definitively not the case. To prove this point, I need to take
the House for a guided tour of Conservative election manifestos
over the last decade—I can hear the enthusiasm in the
Committee.
The 2015 Conservative election manifesto, entitled Strong
Leadership. A Clear Economic Plan. A Brighter, More Secure
Future—not one of the snappier manifesto titles—said on this
issue:
“We will respect the will of the British people, as expressed in
the 2011 referendum, and keep First Past the Post for elections
to the House of Commons.”
The intent is clear: to retain first past the post for general
elections. There is no reference to local elections and certainly
no reference to changing the supplementary voting system for
mayors or Police and Crime
Commissioners
We move on to the 2017 manifesto, entitled Forward, Together: Our
Plan for a Stronger Britain and a Prosperous Future, which
states:
“We will retain the first past the post system of voting for
parliamentary elections and extend this system to police and
crime commissioner and mayoral elections.”
The intent here is equally clear: both to retain first past the
post for parliamentary elections and to extend it to mayors
and Police and Crime
Commissioners However, no action was taken in the period
between that election and 2019; I suspect Brexit had something to
do with that.
Had that been what was in the 2019 Conservative election
manifesto, it would have settled the argument on manifesto
commitments, but it was not. The 2019 manifesto, entitled Get
Brexit Done: Unleash Britain’s Potential—they are getting
snappier—said:
“We will continue to support the First Past the Post system of
voting, as it allows voters to kick out politicians who don’t
deliver, both locally and nationally.”
The key word here is “continue”. The commitment is to continue to
support first past the post where it is currently used for
national and local elections. There is absolutely no reference,
as there was in the 2017 manifesto, to extending first past the
post to mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections.
Indeed, the final point in the sentence, about being able to kick
out politicians who do not deliver, clearly does not apply to
elections of mayors and Police and Crime
Commissioners under the supplementary vote, as they are
perfectly capable of being kicked out and indeed have been.
I cannot tell the Committee why that was left out of the 2019
manifesto, but in a sense it does not matter. There was clearly
no manifesto commitment to change the voting system for mayors
and PCCs. The Minister might argue, “Let’s take the best of three
from the manifestos”, but that clearly will not do. Political
parties can and do change their policy positions substantially
between elections so we have to take the most recent manifesto as
our reference point. In this instance, the position could not be
clearer. It would really help if the Minister acknowledged this
point so that we can move on. Given the importance attached to
commitments in manifestos, it is also important that Ministers do
not assert that they are there when they are not.
Now I will move on to the question of consultation. It is
instructive to see the care and attention that went into
establishing the London mayor and Assembly and the electoral
system to be used in electing them. In this, I am indebted to
conversations with the former Minister, , who led on this for the
Government at the time, and to the research undertaken by the
noble Lord, , who has kindly shared it with
me. In the Green Paper published in July 1997, entitled New
Leadership for London, the Government set out different possible
electoral systems for the mayor and the Assembly. In the case of
the mayor, the choices were first past the post, second ballot
and alternative vote. For the Assembly, a range of options was
put forward, including first past the post.
An extensive consultation process with stakeholders and voters
was undertaken and the subsequent White Paper in March 1998
reported on the results of that consultation. For the mayor, it
proposed the supplementary vote system, and for the assembly, the
additional member system. The White Paper argued that the system
used to elect the assembly should facilitate a more inclusive and
less confrontational style of politics, and the system for the
mayor should help to ensure a clear winner with strong support.
That is a crucial point. The White Paper went on to argue that
electing the mayor and the assembly should be done in ways that
are compatible with each other.
The White Paper noted that the majority of the responses to the
consultation were against the use of the first past the post
system to elect the mayor. Instead, there was strong support for
a system which could give a winning candidate a clear majority.
This was much more likely to be delivered by the supplementary
vote system, which I will come on to, than the first past the
post system where, in a large field of candidates, it is
perfectly possible for the winner to have one-third or less of
the votes.
I have gone through this in some detail, because it formed the
template for all the subsequent elections for mayors
and Police and Crime
Commissioners who were all elected under the supplementary
vote system. We now have 15 elected local authority mayors, nine
elected metro mayors and 40 directly elected Police and
Crime Commissioners as well as the Mayor of London. Through
either metro mayors or Police and Crime
Commissioners the whole country is now served by
postholders who were elected by the supplementary vote system.
That amounts to over 43 million voters. In the 36 referenda on
establishing mayors and the nine consultations on establishing
metro mayors, the clear expectation and understanding was that
the elections would be under the supplementary vote system. If
London is included, some 41.5% of the population is now covered
by a metro mayor. Similarly, with the Police and
Crime Commissioners established under , the supplementary vote system
was used. The relevant legislation in 2011 and 2016 incorporated
the supplementary vote system without controversy, so far as I
can tell. There was no suggestion that it would be otherwise.
Contrast that very extensive process of consultation and
engagement with what has occurred with the current proposals.
When the Bill was introduced in the other place on 5 July last
year, it made no reference to changing the voting system for
mayors and commissioners. As the noble Lord, , said, the Minister
announced that it would form part of the Bill only in September,
when the Bill was already in Committee. Given this, it is not
surprising that the Public Administration and Constitutional
Affairs Committee expressed strong concern about the late
addition. It said that
“the manner in which this change was introduced after the Bill
had been debated by the House at Second Reading was
unsatisfactory and disrespectful towards the House of
Commons.”
I would argue that it is also deeply disrespectful to the 43
million electors who will have their voting system changed
without any meaningful notice or consultation. Put simply, this
is not good enough. Such sweeping constitutional changes should
not be made in this cavalier way.
The Government have argued that the result of the 2011 referendum
on moving to AV for general elections makes the case that the
public favours change. That was a different voting system for
different elections. The use of the supplementary vote system for
mayors and Police and Crime
Commissioners has been put forward by successive Labour and
Conservative Governments when the clear policy of both parties
was to support first past the post for general elections.
I happen to favour the wider use of PR as a fairer system, but I
recognise that this is not a majority view. However, the
arguments made against proportional representation—that it leads
to coalition government and a decoupling of elected
representatives from their electorate—simply do not apply to the
elections of mayors and commissioners by the supplementary vote
system. If the Government want to argue that the public support
first past the post for these elections, they should test the
point through a proper consultation process.
This brings me to my third and final argument. The supplementary
vote system, while not perfect—as no system is—is a much better
way of electing to these posts than first past the post. I say
that because the candidate with the largest number of votes,
following the elimination of candidates other than the first two,
is clearly the winner. Whatever technical arguments are made
about different voting systems, this brings a crucial benefit: a
successful candidate is more likely to win on a majority of the
votes cast on either first or second preferences. This is a
powerful incentive for candidates aspiring to be elected to look
beyond their immediate supporters to the wider electorate. It is
a unifying process that produces, as was intended, mayors with a
strong mandate.
This is essential to produce visible and effective leaders who
can effectively represent the different and competing interests
of their electorate. We invest directly elected mayors with
substantial individual powers over our local public services.
They make decisions over significant resources, balancing
competing priorities and claims. As has been said by the noble
Lord, , we elect individuals
with these powers. It is therefore crucial that they have the
support of as many electors as possible. There are real dangers
in electing such powerful and important figures routinely on the
basis of minority support. That is why, whatever voting system is
used for national elections, the supplementary vote system makes
sense for mayors. Indeed, it is worth noting that the brave mayor
of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, was elected on the basis of the
supplementary vote system, as are all the mayors of the larger
cities in Ukraine.
The Government have argued that the supplementary vote system is
confusing and overcomplicated, but the evidence supporting this
is far from compelling. We have now had five mayoral elections in
London; as has been said, the system is tried and tested. In its
post- poll report on the May 2021 elections, the Electoral
Commission found that nine in 10 voters said that the system was
easy to fill in on the ballot paper. For those who found it
difficult, a range of reasons was given, of which the different
electoral system was only one.
The number of rejected papers in May 2021 was indeed higher for
those elections than for those using first past the post—0.8% for
local government elections, 2.7% for PCC elections and 4.3% for
the mayor. However, the number of rejected papers for the Mayor
of London election was notably higher than the previous election;
the figure in May 2016 was half this at 1.9%. The Electoral
Commission says that the most significant difference for the May
2021 mayoral election was the new ballot paper design. Combine
that with the large number of candidates—there were 20—and the
need to split them over two papers and you can see where the
problems emerged. These are perfectly solvable problems in the
supplementary vote system. It does not require a change of voting
system. It could be addressed simply by changing the design. As
with London, I am sure that other parts of the country could
follow suit.
(Lab)
Can the noble Lord enlighten the House by telling us how many
results of mayoral elections would have had a different result
had they been held under first past the post?
(CB)
The noble Lord had better ask the Minister; I do not have those
figures, but I am happy to dig them out. The point I make still
applies. As in London, I am sure there is scope for better
systems to improve the design of the papers and reduce rejected
numbers.
The last of the Government’s arguments is consistency. Those in
favour of PR might argue that the way to achieve consistency
would be to move all elections over to PR. You do not need to go
that far; as I explained earlier, people are perfectly able to
live with different electoral systems.
I think the real reason the Government have done this, as has
already been alluded to, is the results of the elections
themselves. Out of the 15 directly elected mayors, none
represents the government party; out of the 10 metro mayors,
including the Mayor of London, only two represent the government
party. I can understand why the Government find that a
disappointing result, but I do not think that is a good reason
for taking forward a major constitutional change to an electoral
system without meaningful consultation.
5.30pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I put my name to this stand part debate. When I was in
journalism, people used to say of me, “He may be no good, but at
least he is quick.” I will try to follow that precept this
afternoon.
The first thing I wanted to say will cheer the Minister. Like
him, I do not think much of single transferable votes—I do not
agree with my noble friend on that. The immense
defect of STV compared to its obvious alternative—the alternative
vote, which is an exhaustive ballot—is that it does not produce a
candidate who commands a majority of the electorate. AV
infallibly does, which is why we so sensibly use it for the
election of hereditary Peers. It seems very basic that, for
mayors in particular, and perhaps police commissioners too, we
want somebody who commands a majority of the electorate, and that
STV does not do.
The second thing I want to say is about haste. More than 20 years
ago, on the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform chaired by the
late Lord Jenkins, we were as quick as we possibly could be.
People who have served under Lord Jenkins as chair know he was
not a man who permitted excess words or allowed discussions to
meander. Even so, it took us about 12 months to come to a
conclusion. It may or may not have been right, but it took us 12
months to get there. The complexities are enormous. At that time,
I could have distinguished between three varieties of
Sainte-Laguë system for the distribution of majorities, but now I
can hardly remember the words, and I certainly cannot remember
what those were. But these are immensely complicated matters of
immense importance, and they can affect the results of elections,
which are the expression of our democracy. To do this by
introducing an unheralded amendment in Committee in the other
place is, to use a word much used by my old boss Tony Crosland,
frivolous.
The third thing is that different places need different electoral
systems. It does not follow that because first past the post may
be felt by some to be right for the House of Commons it is right
for every election. It clearly is not. Parliament legislated for
different systems in Scotland and Wales—the AMS system. A whole
set of desiderata attached to electoral systems apply differently
in different elections, and this is a very poor reason for having
first past the post.
It is particularly poor because the winner can have a very tiny
share of the vote, not much more than 20%; I can cheer the
Government up for a moment by citing one such perverse result in
an East Anglia PCC election in 2012. The winner on the first
ballot was one , known to many in this House.
John Prescott’s lead—he had just over 20% of the first ballot
votes—was soon got rid of, and his votes transferred, to elect
. Where is now?
We cannot openly countenance a system where candidates with 20%
of the vote rule over our big cities and order our police. I use
the word again: this is a frivolous approach to constitutional
reform in general and to electoral reform in particular. This
House should have nothing to do with it.
(LD)
My Lords, my name is on some amendments in this group. As Members
of the Committee will know, I am extremely disturbed by this Bill
as a whole and by the way it has been introduced. Of all its
provisions, I think Clause 11 is the least justifiable,
introduced as it was after a Written Statement by a middle-range
Minister last September after the Bill had already begun its
Committee stage in the House of Commons, and pushed through for
clearly partisan reasons.
On Monday, the Minister was asking us to look at the practice on
voter ID in other countries as a justification for what the
Government propose. I am sure he recognises that in the Irish and
Danish constitutions, any change in the voting system is a
constitutional amendment and therefore has to go through
exceptional procedures. That is also true in a number of other
countries. In this respect, of course, he will probably say that
we should pay no attention to other countries. I deeply respect
that, privately, the Minister knows this clause is impossible to
defend, and I recognise that he nevertheless has to stand up for
it as best he can in the circumstances that this was a
Conservative pledge in 2017 and someone up there has not
forgotten that.
Yesterday, I read a very good article in the Political Quarterly
of 2019 entitled “The UK Politics of Overseas Voting” by Susan
Collard; I will return to it when we get on to overseas voting.
One of the things that struck me about the introduction was that
it talked about the package of measures that might have been
agreed among the parties in 2016-17 about voting reform. It was
discussed among the parties in the Commons that we could have
moved towards automatic voter registration to reduce the number
of people not on the register—by and large, the young and the
marginal. We could have had a major effort at citizen engagement
to encourage people to go to the polls. We could also have
included votes at 16, which would almost definitely have helped
the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and others.
In that context, overseas voting and the extension of overseas
voting would have been part of the same package. That could have
been negotiated as part of a—
(Con)
Were these official interparty discussions or informal
exchanges?
(LD)
These were exchanges on and off the Floor of the House of
Commons.
That would have been a major set of changes to voting rights that
might even have included some form of examination of our voting
system. I draw attention to Amendment 140, which suggests that we
need a citizens’ assembly on methods of voting for different
elections in this country. That would be highly desirable,
encouraging an intelligent approach and taking out of the control
of parties the question of whose advantage is most looked to in
this respect.
This Government have mucked about with local government over an
extended period. I am not a great fan of metro mayors—certainly
not metro mayors without the scrutiny of elected assemblies—but
the Government have them. The Government have reduced the number
of local councillors, and now they want to muck about with the
system, partly because what and other enthusiasts thought
they wanted—independently minded people like we saw in New York
and Chicago—has not yet emerged very strongly. But some of those
who emerged are rather good, or not so good, Labour candidates,
who do not please the Government. Be that as it may, we have a
current system for elected mayors.
The only argument, in effect, that the Government can make in
defence of this change is that the voters of London and other
cities are not as intelligent as their counterparts in Ireland,
Scotland and elsewhere and are not capable of understanding a
complicated system such as the supplementary vote and therefore
we have to go back to the first past the post. That is not a good
argument, and I look forward to hearing what alternative argument
the Minister may wish to produce.
One of the problems with the first past the post system is that
it works really well only when there is a clear two-party system
and the two-party system has broken down in almost all democratic
countries in recent years, except for the United Kingdom and the
United States. In the United Kingdom and the United States,
factionalism within both major parties has almost wrecked our
politics, partly because the extremists —or less moderate—in both
major parties have done their best to take over their party
rather than going off and forming their own.
I was very struck by an argument made by the noble Lord, , during our previous day in
Committee, which was that you need to be very careful about how
the selection process for candidates works because in most
constituencies in Britain the selection process decides who will
be the MP. The attraction of any form of alternative voting,
supplementary voting or proportional representation is that it
gives the voter some choice among candidates.
(Lab)
In European elections, for example, if you are top of your
party’s list, it is pretty close to being a safe seat.
(LD)
The noble Lord and I will have conversations about list systems
and non-list systems off the Floor of the House.
On Amendment 144C on proportional representation in local
elections, I recall very clearly many years ago that the borough
of Rochdale had all-out local elections and thus required three
candidates for each ward rather than one. What was most striking
was that that was the point at which Rochdale ceased to have
overwhelmingly white male councillors because if the Labour
Party, the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives each had to choose
three candidates, they tended to choose one white man, one woman
and one Asian. That gave people a choice and in some wards people
voted for the woman or the Asian in greater numbers than they did
for the Labour or Conservative candidate, which you might think
is not a bad thing as a matter of choice in elections.
I remind the noble Lord, , who is deeply committed to
the idea of the constituency, that until the first five years of
my life the tried-and-tested constituency system in the United
Kingdom included a large number of multi-Member constituencies.
The last double-Member constituencies were abolished in 1945. I
know I am older than him and that was not in his lifetime. We had
a number of three and four-Member constituencies in counties and
large boroughs, so if we are talking about things that are
un-English, English history—the tried-and-tested systems referred
to by the noble Lord, Lord True—includes multi-Member
constituencies and different forms of voting in return.
Now is not the time to have a full debate on methods of voting,
but I commend to the Committee the idea that we should move
towards a citizens’ assembly. I hope that whoever makes up the
next Government will indeed move forward on this, but I also say
as strongly as I can that now is not the time to introduce into a
Bill at a late stage, as Clause 11 does, a proposal that the
Government have introduced solely because they think it will
advance the Conservative Party and disadvantage others.
(GP)
I will allow the noble Lord on my right to speak first.
(Lab)
No, no. Go on.
5.45pm
(GP)
I know he will interrupt me anyway.
I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government
Association and one of the rare people who has been elected under
a proportional system to the London Assembly and under first past
the post to a council. It has always struck me that I was told by
Conservative voters in both areas that they voted for me rather
than a Labour or Liberal Democrat person. Under both systems,
they realised that there were options other than voting for the
person that they might first vote for.
I know the Tory party struggles with the future and does not like
modernisation, except when it really suits it, and proportional
representation is the future. It is obvious that other
democracies—I am not even sure that this country is a democracy
any more, but I will grant us that status—have been using
proportional representation for years.
There is more grumbling on the Labour Benches about what I am
saying and I really wish they would do it quietly so that I could
not hear them.
Proportional representation is the future. First past the post is
a relic of the past when small groups of landowning gentlemen
would gather in a small room to cast their votes to put another
landowning gentleman into a room to represent their interests to
the monarch. That is really not a system that we want to
continue. As the franchise has expanded to include women and
non-landowning men and the population has grown, so the number of
voters is many times what it once was and social diversity has
increased massively. We are now at a point when first past the
post simply is no longer an appropriate system. The idea that
winner takes all leaves many millions of people unrepresented in
Parliament and in councils.
It seems to benefit the two main parties, Labour and the
Conservatives. They are apparently content to take turns to run
the country. Sometimes they do well and are handed a substantial
majority in spite of the fact that they do not have a majority of
voters behind them, and sometimes they suffer and end up in
opposition. However, it does not suit Labour as well as it thinks
it does. In the previous century the Conservatives won 20
elections and the Labour Party only nine. Labour does not benefit
from first past the post. If Labour wants to form more
Governments—we see this reported endlessly—it will have to appeal
to more voters, which means to people like me, who might give
them a vote if my preferred candidate is not able to carry a
majority. We need PR, and that means real democratic reform, such
as the amendments in this group, which I support; I will be happy
to vote for any of them. If they throw in a new, real green new
deal, that would improve the odds of Labour forming a new
Government a lot.
First past the post feeds into the overly confrontational system
we have at the moment. The nature of British politics is not very
attractive. The parties are forced to fight viciously by the very
nature of the electoral system. In the other place and here, we
confront each other across the Chamber. It is very unhealthy in
terms of being able to work together and find any sort of
consensus. The first past the post voting system is designed to
create conflict and opposition and it enables a small bunch of
right-wing politicians to run a corrupt and uncaring Government
on a mandate given by fewer than half the voters. Consensus
building in politics is the future and will help us to claw our
way out of the climate crisis.
You have to ask: do the general public like the way things are
run? No, they do not—they will tell you that they do not like the
constant fighting and braying that they see in Parliament, and
they wonder why politicians cannot work better together. They
wonder why campaigns are run with dirty tricks and character
assassinations, and they wonder why politics and
politicians—us—cannot be better. These are all reasons why we
need to change the voting system, to transform our democracy into
something really democratic and to allow people to be represented
by the politicians who most closely align with their values,
opinions and hopes for their future—to stop people being forced
to choose the lesser evil.
(Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady
Jones, arguing for consensual politics in a characteristically
aggressive speech—and it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord,
Lord Wallace, as well. There must be a misprint on the Marshalled
List, because the noble Lord told us that he did not want to
discuss proportional representation. But there is an amendment
tabled here, with his as the lead name, proposing a new clause
with the heading, “Proportional representation for elections to
the House of Commons”. I do not know whether he wants to discuss
that—
(LD)
I said “at length”. I assure the noble Lord that I can discuss
proportional representation at very great length, but I fear that
might tire the Committee.
(Lab)
I shall certainly follow the injunction not to speak at length,
but I cannot resist responding to arguments about proportional
representation. Oddly enough, I think I am the first the noble
Lord so far to speak passionately in favour of first past the
post, which shows once again how unrepresentative this House can
be of British public opinion. On two specific occasions, it has
been the subject that dare not speak its name. There are two
issues that have not been mentioned, either by the noble Lord,
Lord Wallace—and I do not blame him—or by the noble Baroness,
Lady Jones. One is the small matter of an opinion poll, and I
shall call it that to be a little contentious, held in 2011,
which consisted of 19.2 million voters, who the noble Baroness,
Lady Jones, has told us probably represent something that is
dying out and departing. That opinion poll was in a referendum
which the Liberal party made a condition of its membership of the
coalition—and at any stage, if the noble Lord, Lord Wallace,
wants to interrupt, of course he can. He was a Minister in that
Government.
(LD)
I thank the noble Lord for the invitation. He will remember that
this was the first occasion on which managed very successfully
to make the argument that it would be much too costly to change
the electoral system and that the money would be much better
spent on the National Health Service instead—an argument that he
also used in the Brexit referendum. In neither case was the money
spent on the NHS.
(Lab)
Well, to bring into it sounds like a good
argument to a point that I was not discussing and do not intend
to discuss.
The referendum was a condition of the Liberal Democrats’
membership of the coalition Government; they said that there
should be a referendum on the voting system in this country. Some
19.2 million votes were cast, 6 million in favour of the
alternative vote system and 13 million for first past the post,
as specifically referred to. There was a 2:1 majority for first
past the post, and a widely held debate right across the country.
I am pretty shocked that, having demanded that referendum and
having rejected the result, which is not an unusual
characteristic, the noble Lord wants, by means of an amendment to
a Bill, to change the electoral system away from first past the
post, not by another referendum—because referendums keep giving
him the result that he does not want—but by an amendment to a
Bill. I find that a very unsatisfactory way of proceeding, but I
am afraid that it has become a behaviour pattern. I am sorry,
because I agree with the Liberal Democrats on a lot of aspects of
this Bill, but not on this. It is a very similar pattern to what
was followed in relation to the European referendum, whereby they
voted for the referendum, did not like the result but knew that
it was too big a risk to put it back to the people—so, instead of
having another referendum, they proposed to change it without one
and back to the original situation.
I am afraid that this approach of no compromise with the
electorate that seems to be being offered by one party to this
discussion is really not a satisfactory way for democrats to
proceed. Of course, people can change their mind; people might
decide, at some future date, that they want to change the
electoral system. But, again, I have noticed—and this is why I
both enjoy but am frustrated by discussions about the voting
system—that one thing that people who are in favour of changing
from first past the post always manage to do, whenever you
criticise them for anything that they are proposing, is to say,
“Oh, that’s not the kind of proportional representation that I’m
in favour of—it’s completely different.” In fact, of course, they
will even argue, although it was more proportional, that the
proposal in the 2011 referendum, which was for the alternative
vote system, was not proper proportional representation. It is
not, but it is much more proportional —and I am quite certain
that they see the electoral systems for mayors, police
commissioners and everything else just as a stepping-stone
towards proportional representation.
I am the first noble Lord to mention the referendum. The other
thing that proponents of proportional representation always avoid
mentioning is the test bed that we had for quite a long
time—thankfully, no longer —for elections to the European
Parliament. They were done on the basis of proportional
representation. I remind supporters of the system of the
arguments that are tediously repeated about the great merits of
proportional representation, the principal point of which is that
it reaches parts of the electorate that are ignored at present.
It is said that there are tens of thousands of Labour voters,
say, in the south of England and tens of thousands of
Conservative voters in the north of England who never have their
voices represented, and that if you released all that potential
by proportional representation, the public would be
energised.
(GP)
How does the noble Lord explain the fact that, when you have a PR
system—it does not matter in which country—you get loads of
Greens elected? Does not that sound as though there is an
unexpressed need under first past the post for Greens? I do not
know why noble Lords are all laughing: there are three out of 25
on the London Assembly.
(Lab)
I was listening carefully to the noble Baroness’s speech, and she
seemed to be suggesting that quite a lot of votes were not votes
for Greens at all but votes for her personally. I have never
kidded myself about that, with regard to elections that I have
fought, because I have lost too many—I cannot afford to say
that.
I have said that the standard argument is that proportional
representation energises people. But the turnout for European
elections in 2009 was 35%, which is lower than in local
government elections, generally. In 2014, it was 36% and in 2019
it went up to 37%, but that was because large numbers of people
were voting for a party to scrap the European Union, as we know.
So let us please hear from any proponents of PR who happen to
emerge during this debate an explanation as to why they do not
attach any significance whatever to a referendum held on the
subject, and precisely why it is, when a PR system has been tried
in this country, it has not involved large numbers of people
turning out to the polls. In fact, although admittedly it is for
general elections, good old first past the post is the one that
continues to attract far and away the biggest turnout of any of
the other fancy electoral systems on offer.
Finally, I will mention an important point: PR kills the link
between an MP and a constituency. That is the heart of it. I
speak as a former MP—there are many others in this House—in
saying that, whenever MPs are accused of getting out of touch
with the electorate, the answer is always the same, and it is
true: if you hold surgeries every weekend and have meetings—
6.00pm
(CB)
Could the noble Lord perhaps address the point I made in my
contribution? Whatever your views about disconnection during a
general election between the vote and the person holding the
seat, that does not apply to metro mayors in the way it works.
Similarly, the noble Lord talks of countering the referendum, but
we are here changing the voting system—we are not adding PR but
reducing the current use of the system—without consultation at
all.
(Lab)
I am the wrong person to ask about directly elected mayors
or Police and Crime
Commissioners because I have always been opposed to both. On
the method whereby they are elected, I prefer a parliamentary
system in local and national government —namely, a system whereby
whoever holds executive power is subject to constant control,
management or association with the people who decide who should
be in the Executive. Some of my best friends are elected mayors
or Police and Crime
Commissioners but the system—certainly that
for Police and Crime
Commissioners —is not worth having a great debate about. I
repeat: the link between an MP and a constituency keeps the feet
on the ground.
Finally, I think the proponents of PR call it “fair votes”—I tend
to think of it as “unfair votes” because it certainly results in
unfair power. It effectively means that the third most popular
party of the three major national parties is the one pretty
permanently in office. would no doubt still be Deputy
Prime Minister—there is a thought for you—almost for life,
because it is always a question of which of the two main parties
the third party will associate itself with. That leads to
disproportionate power and influence for the smallest of the
parties, which is not a system to be defended. Let us at least
agree that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, can
either be not moved—he does not seem keen to debate it—or,
preferably, defeated.
(Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, , with whom I completely agree.
I will speak mainly on the opposition to Clause 11 standing part,
which is in this group, but I do not support any of the
amendments in it. I listened very carefully to what the noble
Lord, , said—he was clearly
much too modest to say that he actually invented the
supplementary vote system, back in 1989, so what we heard was
some rather over- protective parenthood trying to keep that
system going.
Our electoral system has had first past the post at its heart for
a very long time—and very successfully. The noble Lord, , referred to the referendum in
2011, when the British people were quite conclusive in their
view: they did not want the alternative vote system. I accept
that it is not the same as the supplementary vote system, but it
showed that the British public had no appetite to change from the
first past the post system.
The noble Lord, , who is
unfortunately not in his place, described the supplementary vote
system, in 2015, as “one of the worst” electoral systems, and I
agree with that. The noble Lord, , described it in 2014
as the “oddest” electoral system—I thought I was going to find a
second thing that I could agree with him on this week, but he may
have been using that as a compliment. I do not think anyone has
mentioned that, in 2016, the Home Affairs Committee in the other
place recommended that it be abandoned for PCC elections.
The supplementary vote system is used hardly anywhere outside
England, with very good reason. The noble Lord, , helpfully gave the
statistics for the 2021 London mayoral and PCC elections. He
tried to blame that on the ballot paper, but I just do not buy
that: there is a very significant difference between the number
of spoilt ballot papers in the—
(CB)
I was quoting what the Electoral Commission said.
(Con)
I hear what the noble Lord has said, but the difference between
the spoilt ballot papers in the local elections at that time and
the PCC and London mayoral elections is too great to be laid
wholly at the door of the shape or design of the ballot
paper.
The British people understand the first past the post system,
which is why they supported it in 2011. It gives a clear result
to the candidate with the most votes, and that is the heart of
accountability. If that candidate does not perform to the
electorate’s will or expectation, they can boot him out; they can
vote him out at subsequent elections. That is the key advantage
of the first past the post system: it gives a very clear
result.
(LD)
Is the logic of what the noble Baroness is saying that electors
in Northern Ireland and Scotland who use STV, or people in South
Yorkshire who elect their mayor, cannot vote their officeholders
out because of the voting system?
(Con)
They can vote them out, but it is much more obscure—the link is
much less direct. The supplementary vote system, which is what we
are talking about replacing, clearly allows weaker candidates,
with fewer first preference votes, to get through the system
because of second preference votes, which have the same value as
first preference ones—that does not seem right.
My only regret about the Bill is that it does not get rid of the
even more confusing additional member system for the London
Assembly. As the noble Lord, , said, we fortunately no
longer have the proportional representation system for the EU
elections, which resulted in MEPs being distant and certainly not
accountable to electorates. I would personally look again at the
systems used in Scotland and Wales, but I shall stick to my
normal practice in your Lordships’ House of not getting involved
in devolved matters. It is time for our electoral systems in
England to return to their roots and for the first past the post
system to be the default for national elections and all English
elections.
(Non-Afl)
My Lords, I have been affected by the debate this evening. I was
intending to speak—if I was going to speak at all—in a rather
different way, because I have anxieties about the way that the
Government introduced this legislation, at the point when they
brought in all the material about the form of election. But I
have been stirred by the other side of the argument, because
something that I feared has definitely now come about: the people
arguing against the Bill are really trying to bring back
proportional representation, as a much wider piece of argument,
into the whole of our public life and our electoral system—
of Ullock (Lab)
I did not argue in my speech for bringing proportional
representation forward at all.
(Non-Afl)
I thank the noble Baroness for that and accept what she says. I
am thinking more widely of the debate—
(CB)
Does the noble Lord agree that I also made no argument to extend
proportional representation? My specific concern was about this
change and it being made without consultation.
(Non-Afl)
I listened closely to the noble Lord’s speech, and it is
perfectly true that he made a very long and important argument
about the specifics, but he also expressed a general preference
for proportional representation.
I wish to make a very simple point, which I think came across
very well in what the noble Lord, , said. He described how, even
under the strict chairmanship of Lord Jenkins, it took 12 months
of what he called “immense complication” to look at these issues.
That is precisely the problem with all this. It is dangerous to
confess to ignorance in this very learned and expert House, but
despite covering politics in various ways for 40 years, I have
never been able fully to understand or explain all the different
voting systems that clever people keep coming up with, and that
is an argument against them. If somebody who is paid a salary to
try to understand these things still finds them complicated,
there is something wrong with them. All right, I am stupid, but I
make the point that it is very important for the buy-in of a
democracy that people can understand what is being said, what is
being offered and how to perform the operation they are invited
to perform. They can do so under first past the post, but under
proportional representation they cannot, broadly speaking.
Therefore, I oppose these amendments and support the Bill.
(Non-Afl)
My Lords, I used to be a full supporter of first past the post,
very much in the spirit of the remarks made by the noble Lord,
, and those of the noble
Baroness, Lady Noakes, in relation to accountability. However,
over recent years I have started to see a problem that I wanted
to raise—I am not just doing this as counselling. Because of the
whole of Clause 11, we have been invited, in a way, by the
Government to discuss electoral systems, and that is one of the
problems with the way it has emerged. I would not be discussing
it if they had not brought it in, but now that everyone else is
discussing it, I will join in.
I was minded to support Amendment 136 until I realised that it
was an amendment that would overturn a referendum, which struck
me as not a good idea and not likely to fit in with my general
position on these things. It is perhaps ironic to those people in
this Committee arguing for proportional representation that I was
elected using that method in the European elections and came top
of the list. I do not know if people think that was a fully
democratic system, because a lot of people did not think that I
should have been there at all, or elected in that way, when I
stood only for very particular reasons, as we know.
These are the problems with first past the post in 2022 that I
cannot get my head around. Through this Bill, we want to reassure
voters that elections are watertight in terms of fairness and
that they represent what they want as voters. In a number of
debates, we have discussed our worries about different clauses
that might be seen to be disenfranchising voters—sometimes I
think these are overwrought worries, but they are worries none
the less. It seems to me, however, that first past the post, in
lots of ways, makes many people’s votes redundant and represents
a frustration with what is happening politically.
I remember that before the 2016 referendum I was invited to a
think tank gathering at which most of the people were supporters
of remaining in the European Union. They assumed that I was as
well, because that is what nice think-tankers did. They said that
one problem they had was that the referendum would not be taken
seriously if they did not get a big turnout, so what could they
do to get a big turnout? The consensus in the room was that it
must be emphasised that a vote in the 2016 referendum was a
once-in-a-lifetime vote where, for once, every single person’s
vote would count. They went out and argued that very successfully
and the nation said, “My goodness, for once my vote really will
count.” As a consequence, people took it seriously that they were
being asked to make a big constitutional decision and that this
was one election where every individual vote meant something. In
the build-up to the referendum, it led to grass-roots discussion
groups being set up around the country, family conferences and
people getting together with their research. People took the
whole thing extremely seriously and there was an atmosphere of
vibrancy and buzz, with people saying, “What should we do?” as
they assessed the pros and cons. People rose to the challenge
that their vote counted, an idea which I think really
resonated.
6.15pm
This was particularly true after the 2015 election. Something
peculiar happened in that election which should concern us, and
that is the story of what happened to the Greens and UKIP, two
parties I did not and do not support but they were ill served in
that election. One of them won 12.5% of the national vote, nearly
4 million votes, but got only one MP. The other got 1,157,630
votes, and got one MP. If PR had been used, they might have got
over 30 MPs. That must mean that millions of people will have
felt disfranchised and not represented, because those votes had
practically no impact on the political make-up of Parliament.
This is not the same as voting Labour and losing to the
Conservatives, or voting Conservative and losing to Labour, or
loser’s consent. I am talking about parties that cannot find a
way of getting represented in a political system because they
cannot break through the way that first past the post works. It
therefore challenges my commitment to one person, one vote. I am
worried about locking people out and neutering their views,
telling them that their views do not matter and do not make any
difference. I worry that the two-party system permanently
ossifies political division into the two main parties. But over
recent years we have seen new and real political divisions
emerge; how do we allow voters to feel as if their collective
democratic clout can represent those different divisions?
One argument that I often hear about PR—I have used it myself—is
that it would lead to unstable coalitions and a never-ending
process of principle-light horse trading. Having been involved,
close-up, in parliamentary politics over the last year,
principle-light horse trading is not confined to PR. It seems to
me that both main parties are, in a way, made up of coalitions.
If you look at the modern-day Conservative Party or the
modern-day Labour Party, they are full of factions, and sometimes
I do not understand how they get on as they seem to be arguing
completely different things. We can all see it. It is a kind of a
coalition politics that is not openly acknowledged, but it is
there, and on that the noble Lord, , made something of a
point. I do not think they are full of extremists; it is just
people with different politics all stuffed into the two main
parties. That does not seem to represent what the voters might
want.
Regardless of how it is done, it seems obvious to me that if
Parliament and local politics are to be properly representative,
and civil society is to become more engaged and energised, we
need to find ways that allow for the creation of new parties that
can break up a consensus and represent new ideas and concerns. I
worry about the danger of a zombie Parliament and an electorate
who feel unrepresented and who will turn to cynicism and
disillusionment if they believe that their vote cannot count in
the way that it should. Having an Elections Bill in which we keep
talking about the voters and how to make them feel included will
be a waste of time. There is a problem here.
(LD)
My Lords, I rise to speak on behalf of my noble friend , who has Amendment 144C in his
name, but he is in Grand Committee and unfortunately cannot be
here to speak to it. In so doing, I declare my interest as laid
down in the register, both as a vice-president of the Local
Government Association and as a trustee of Make Votes Count.
The amendment tabled by my noble friend would implement PR in local
government—not a system for proportional against the whole
district, but a system for each ward based on the one-two-three
model. This keeps the ward as the basis of the representative
district but makes sure that the system is more representative of
the majority views of the electorate.
That would avoid councils being heavily dominated by one party
that secures less than 50% of the poll, in the vast majority of
seats. At least each councillor would have the support of 50%
plus one after the transfers at second preference. If I apply
that to my own city of Sheffield, 29 seats were up for election
in 2021 but in only seven of them did someone get more than 50%
of the vote in the ward. The figure for the candidate who got
elected with the smallest percentage of votes was 31.7%. That
happened to be a Liberal Democrat, so this is not a political
issue; as a matter of principle, I do not think a system is fair
when 29 seats are up for election but only seven of them are
elected on the basis of the majority of people who decide to go
out and vote. So I support the amendment in my noble friend’s
name.
I turn to the wider argument about how Clause 11 came about.
Having listened to the last hour and a half, I say to those noble
Lords who are not normally invited to Liberal Democrat ward
meetings that it has sounded a bit like a Liberal Democrat ward
meeting. Some people in this Chamber who are not Liberal
Democrats seem far more technical and geeky than some Liberal
Democrats on voting systems. I have heard many arguments about
why we are talking about voting systems. Let me be clear: we
would not be talking about voting systems at all if the
Government had not tried to push through this clause as they did
in the House of Commons.
It is quite insulting for an elector back in South Yorkshire, who
has voted for a metro mayor, who was asked whether we wanted one
and then told what the voting system would be—or at least we were
asked about how we wanted a mayor and a voting system—to be told
now that that voting system is somehow too complicated for us or
not relevant to our local area. This has been pushed through
without any consultation at all with the areas that have metro
mayors. We have had no say back in our regions about whether we
want this change. That is not the way to bring about change. It
is for that reason more than anything else that I do not think
Clause 11 should stand part.
I turn to some of the other arguments. I have to point out very
gently to some noble Lords that this is not 2011; we are now in
2021.
Noble Lords
2022!
(LD)
Sorry, 2022. It feels as if this debate started last year.
The YouGov tracker looks at a number of issues. One issue that it
has been tracking for 10 years is people’s perceptions of voting
and voting systems. The question it asks is:
“Some people support a change in the British voting system to
proportional representation, where the number of MPs a party wins
more closely reflects the share of the vote they receive. Other
people support retaining our present voting system, First Past
the Post, which is more likely to give one party an overall
majority in the House of Commons and avoid a hung Parliament.
Which voting system would you prefer?”
In March 2022, the latest figure—and this has been a trend for
over 10 years—the vast majority of people who give a preference
support PR, with 44% in favour of PR and 27% in favour of first
past the post. Among Liberal Democrat voters, 62% support a PR
system while 21% are in favour of first past the post. The party
with the highest number of people who support first past the post
is the Labour Party; 64% support PR and 13% support first past
the post. I accept that among Conservative voters there is a
small majority for first past the post.
We should look at the Red Wall seats. This is really important
because a lot of people really feel that their vote does not
count, that they do not have a voice and that in some
constituencies there are MPs for life. In certain parts where I
come from, people say, “No matter who you put up, if they wear a
certain colour of rosette then they will get elected.” This is
not a middle-class or a southern debate; in the north, 43%
support PR and 28% do not.
(Lab)
Could the noble Lord remind us of his sample size? Mine was 19.2
million.
(LD)
That was 11 years ago. I am trying to point out to the noble Lord
that people’s views change. I am not prepared to accept that 2011
is still how the public feel.
(Con)
Could the noble Lord answer the second question, which was: what
type of PR was wanted? That is the problem. It is not just about
saying “We like PR.” There is a huge gamut of options. Unless you
are clear about what is actually being offered to people, you
will get that answer but then, when they have to make a choice,
first past the post comes back to the front.
(LD)
I support Amendment 140, which is about setting up a citizens’
assembly to go through this question so that citizens can come to
a view about the best voting system that they would wish to see
if we moved to a PR system. I would therefore like to leave it to
a citizens’ assembly rather than dictating it. I have my own
personal preference, which is STV, but I do not think it should
be about my personal preference; I think it should be down to a
citizens’ assembly.
I do not think the British public are stuck back in 2011. I think
we have moved forward and people feel that PR is the future. That
goes across all parties and social demographics—apart from the
Conservative Party voters who support first past the post—and all
regions of the UK.
The way that Clause 11, regarding mayors and Police and
Crime Commissioners was introduced by the Government in the
other place, and the very fact that those people who were offered
a mayor on a system of voting that was not first past the post
have not been asked, is not levelling up; it is pushing us down
and completely ignoring the voice of the people back in those
regions who now have a metro mayor.
(CB)
My Lords, back in the middle of the last century when I was
Minister of State for Home Affairs in the old parliament in
Northern Ireland, I had the task of reforming the local
government system in Northern Ireland, which was then first past
the post. This meant that in the west all the councillors were
Irish nationalists and in the east all the councillors were
Ulster unionists. Against some opposition from my own party, I
introduced a Bill that included STV for local government. This
resulted in the unionists in the west, who are the 40% minority,
having representation for the first time, and they have it still
today. Likewise, the Irish nationalists gained seats in the east
that they would not have had under first past the post. So there
was fair representation of Catholics and Irish nationalists in
the eastern part of Northern Ireland and fair representation of
unionists and protestants in the western part.
When it comes to UK elections, of course we still have first past
the post because that is the UK law. What does that result in? It
results in Sinn Féin/IRA winning many seats where they get less
than 50% of the votes cast in their constituencies, and the
result of that election is that they boycott the House of
Commons. If we had STV or some other kind of proportional
representation system in UK elections in Northern Ireland, I
think we would have very few Sinn Féin MPs in the House of
Commons.
(Con)
My Lords, I want to make one very simple point related to what we
are talking about. I agree entirely with the words of the noble
Lord, , and my noble friend Lady
Noakes. I really believe that first past the post has stood the
test of time. I think that all the other ideas are more complex
and more difficult, and that if the general public were asked and
thought it through again, they would still vote for first past
the post. What worries me is this. If it is true that most people
out there still want first past the post, but the general feeling
in here is that they should not have it, we ought to think very
carefully about what that says about your Lordships’ House.
6.30pm
(Lab)
I should confess to having been a supporter of electoral reform
for many years—since the 1970s, when I was working for the Labour
Government. The reason I became a supporter of electoral reform
was that I felt our society was becoming very dysfunctional, our
way of government was very dysfunction, and the Labour party was
essentially two parties forced together into one and was not
really working in the best interests of the country.
The essay question I would love to debate with the noble Lord,
Lord Moore, and that has to be addressed, is this: in the
post-war period, particularly given the troubles we have been
through in the last 10 years, has Britain had a more satisfactory
system of governance than Germany? Germany has been so
successful, with its proportional representation and federal
system—a system, incidentally, in which British advisers and
British politicians played a very important part in ensuring in
the democratic part of Germany after 1945. For me, that is the
big essay question. I know what I think about it, but it would be
worthy of debate.
However, we are not debating that general question this evening;
we are debating the specifics of whether the supplementary vote
system should be changed. I have been sitting for an hour and 43
minutes through this debate, and I should think that less than a
third of it has addressed that specific point, and so I do not
want to detain the Committee for long. I accept all the arguments
that have been made about the undesirability of this proposal
emerging at a very late stage in this Bill. I do not think
changes in electoral systems should be introduced in an arbitrary
way, or as my noble friend said, as Tony Crosland would
have said, in a frivolous way; they ought to be seriously
considered.
It is possible to have different electoral systems for different
purposes; we do not have to have the same electoral system for
everything. We now have a great variety of electoral systems. I
am quite interested to know why the noble Lord, , thinks it is desirable to go
back to first past the post for the Mayor of London elections but
to retain the proportionally elected London Assembly. It seems to
me that if, as a result of that action, the mayor’s political
base is significantly lower than it is under the present system,
then there is the possibility of real dysfunctional government
when agreeing budgets and other questions where the London
Assembly has a say. That is a very serious point.
I think that devolution has been a success, certainly in Scotland
and Wales. I even think that what the noble Lord, , said about Northern
Ireland was very interesting. The success of devolution has
depended on a proportional system, and on the additional member
system in Scotland and Wales. Look at how support for devolution
has grown, particularly in Wales, since it came about in the late
1990s. It would be difficult for the Government—even this
Government—to try to abolish Welsh and Scottish devolution. One
of the reasons it has such strong support is because it is seen
to be very representative across the community. There is an
understanding between Plaid Cymru and the Labour Party in Wales.
Similarly, despite disliking the thought of an SNP Government,
they do show that a proportional system enables change to happen.
Labour showed great foresight in devolution, in agreeing to a
proportional system. For that purpose, it has been very
successful.
On the question of the supplementary vote, particularly for
mayors, one of the arguments—as I remember it from when I was in
No. 10—for introducing this arrangement was that we wanted to
encourage the possibility of diverse and independent candidates
coming forward who might challenge the established parties. That
is quite a good argument.
(Lab)
My noble friend did not say that at the time.
(Lab)
It was said in the councils of which I was part that it would be
a good idea to shake up conventional politics at the local level.
That was the argument.
(Lab)
I do not normally draw attention to this but my noble friend and
I were both working in No. 10 at the same time. I would say two
things: first, if that was ever discussed, I never heard it; and,
secondly, if I had heard it, I would have been ferociously
opposed to it.
(Lab)
I have no doubt about that; that is why we would not have
mentioned it to my noble friend. I am trying to make the point
that there is an argument for something that opens up politics a
bit more.
In the case of mayors, it is not like voting for an MP, where you
are basically voting for who you want to be Prime Minister or
which political party you support. It is very much about who you
want to govern your local area, and they should have the widest
possible base of support.
(Lab)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure always to follow my noble friend
, even though I would not agree
with an awful lot of what he said; it is a great pleasure to
follow him, nevertheless.
I absolutely think that there is no case at the moment for
changing the electoral system for police commissioners. We have
no directly elected mayors in Wales but we have police
commissioners. There is a very strong case for trying to increase
the turnout and the interest in elections for police
commissioners. I am reminded of the fact that, in the very first
election for police commissioners in Gwent, my own county, there
was one notorious ward in the city of Newport where not a single
person turned up to vote—no one at all. We are deluded if we
think that changing the electoral system will improve interest.
We look forward with great interest to the Minister telling us
why we need to change the system.
I refer now to Amendment 136, and the very interesting debate we
have had on first past the post versus proportional
representation. This is not a wide debate—it would take days,
weeks and months to do that—but rather one on the nature of the
amendment we have been asked to consider. The amendment says that
the House of Commons should be elected by PR, full stop. My noble
friend , in a fine speech, referred to
the fact that these things cannot be changed unless there is a
referendum on them. It is a rather unusual argument to suggest
that because we had one in 2011 it is no longer relevant. Of
course it is relevant, in the sense that we should have another
referendum if that is required and should not change things
unless the people are asked.
In my political lifetime, I have fought 11 elections. I served as
an elected representative for 49 years, 28 of them in the other
place. The great advantage of our system is that there is a
marvellous link between the elected representative and the people
whom he or she represents. It is unique. I was always referred to
as “my MP” or “our MP” in the possessive case because they
thought that. The contrast, for example, with the change that
took place when we altered our electoral system for the European
Parliament was immense.
Of course, the constituencies for Europe were very
large—grotesquely large in some senses—but I bet your bottom
dollar that people knew who their Member of the European
Parliament was. I bet your bottom dollar, too, that they did not
when the new system came in. I did not know who mine was, and I
was an MP for the area towards the end of that system. We
completely lost that link between the elected representatives and
the people whom they represented. That is the greatest aspect of
our system, which we must not do away with.
Of course, we have different systems in different parts of the
United Kingdom. I was partly instrumental in bringing about the
system in Northern Ireland. The noble Lord, , was right. He was very
advanced and forward-looking when he made that change all those
years ago. The only way that the partisanship in Northern Ireland
could be destroyed was to have that system changed. It is very
different there from the rest of the United Kingdom. It is not
the same as Wales or Scotland or England because, by voting the
way they do in Northern Ireland, they express a very different
view from that expressed by the rest of the United Kingdom. That
was a very significant change indeed. The Assembly is elected by
STV; local government is elected by STV, but, of course, the MPs
in the United Kingdom Parliament are elected by first past the
post.
Scotland and Wales are different. They have top- up systems,
known as AMSs. They are entirely incomprehensible to the voter. I
entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moore, that if the voter
cannot understand what they are voting for, it is a very poor
system. Indeed, in Wales, a commission has been set up to
investigate changing to a different system, although I do not
think they will change completely to first past the post. There
is some merit in having different systems in different parts of
the country—in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland for their own
assemblies—but they have to be comprehensible to the voters who
use them. At the moment, that is not the case.
The biggest flaw, of course, in this amendment is that it does
not seek proper legitimacy for the change. It is not just the
2011 referendum, but in every case—in Northern Ireland, Wales and
Scotland—referendums were held for the new systems of government,
and that included the way those Governments and Assemblies were
elected in every single case. In Wales, of course, when they
wanted extra powers some years ago, they went for another
referendum to get that legitimacy which lies behind every change.
So, for me, the great weakness of this amendment is not just that
I do not agree with PR, but rather my belief that the way in
which the change would be introduced has to be done by asking the
people. If you ask the people, you must also say to them: “Do you
understand what it is you are voting for?”
(Lab)
My Lords, as a very new Member of the House, I had not intended
to take part in Committee on this important Bill. However, I need
to do so to make a confession. Under the hereditary by-elections,
in which I participated quite recently, the process is one
entirely of proportional representation. That will open up my
noble friend to argue that this is a
further reason why the hereditary Peers’ elections should not
take place. He might add that it is a further reason why we
should not be here at all.
6.45pm
(LD)
My Lords, I want to make a brief contribution on Amendment 144C
in the name of my noble friend , relating to proportional
representation in local government. My noble friend , the noble Lord, Lord Murphy,
and others have spoken on it as well. I want to pick up one
remark made by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that the problem
with, for instance, the European elections and the nature of the
voting system for them was that those elected were too distant
from the electors. I will make a couple of points relating to
local government, which I think might be relevant.
Last May, in the local elections, 3.2 million people voted
Conservative but still found themselves in a local authority that
had no Conservative councillors at all; 40,000 of those were in
Manchester, the neighbouring authority to my authority of
Stockport. Those 40,000 people voted Conservative, but they did
not get one Conservative councillor elected in Manchester. In
fact, there has not been a Conservative elected to Manchester
City Council since 1992. There are actually a large number of
local authorities where one or the other of the two big parties
does not have any representatives at all in that area.
The Conservatives have no councillors elected in Newcastle,
Norwich, Newham, Oxford or Cambridge. There is a list, but I will
not go on any further than that. Conversely, of course, there are
plenty of Labour voters who are not represented at all by a
councillor in the authority in which they reside: 5.8 million
Labour votes were cast for candidates in local authorities where
no Labour councillor at all was elected. When it comes to being
distant from the electors, we need to bear in mind the very
polarising effect of first past the post in quite a number of our
local authorities.
One place where Labour has no councillors is the Royal Borough of
Kingston upon Thames in London. Labour had 36% of the national
share of the vote at the last round of elections but no Labour
councillor was elected. That was a Liberal Democrat stronghold,
but in Harrogate, 23.4% of people voted for Labour candidates,
but none was elected. That is a Conservative stronghold.
It is not just whether people have representation at all in a
local authority; it is whether they have appropriate
representation, depending on the strength of the electorate who
supported them. I picked out just one local authority—not
completely at random—the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames,
where in 2018, 78,491 votes were cast for Conservative
candidates, and that resulted in the election of 11 councillors.
In fact, they lost 28 seats as a result of that. They should, in
fact, have had 20 seats, had there been a more proportional
system.
I will not detain the Committee any further on that but point out
simply that this amendment would introduce a change to local
government in England which would be very much to the benefit of
local democracy and the fair representation of people. It would
give people a voice or a channel of communication, at least, for
their point of view in practically every town hall in the
country.
On the much wider debate that has opened up, I say simply to the
noble Lord, , that in 2010, when he stood
for election on the Labour manifesto, he stood on a commitment to
introduce the alternative vote. Indeed, I remember, as one of
those who took part in the negotiations with the other parties in
the start-up of the coalition Government, having a discussion
with senior members of his party about that proposition.
(Lab)
If I heard aright, the noble Lord said that I stood in the
election of 2010, but I am afraid that I was in the House of
Lords by that stage.
(LD)
How very wise the noble Lord was to miss that particular
commitment, is all I can say. A number of his colleagues were
blessed by that promise.
To return to the substance of Clause 11 and the amendments moved
by the noble Lord, , I remind the Committee that the
Law Commission said that there should be a comprehensive overhaul
of election legislation brought forward in a proper Bill. The
Committee on Standards in Public Life produced 47 recommendations
for change. Both those ideas have been rejected by the Government
on the grounds that there has not been enough time, it needs more
consideration and there would have to be wide consultation before
they could be brought in. Finding that this proposition has been
dumped into the Bill is inconsistent with that view against
having a comprehensive reform of electoral law, along the basis
that independent sources strongly recommend.
I was impressed by what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said
about the views of the Mayor of Greater Manchester and his
reasoning. That struck me, as someone who lives in the area over
which the mayor casts his eye, more powerfully than it probably
did other noble Lords. There is no element of self-interest in
what the Mayor of Greater Manchester said. It grieves me to say
that in the May mayoral election, , the mayor, won a plurality of
votes in every ward in every borough in Greater Manchester,
including all those which at the same time returned Tory, Liberal
Democrat and, in one or two cases, independent councillors. There
was a clear view from the electorate that they wanted this
personality as the Mayor of Greater Manchester. Whether we like
to believe it or not, it clearly transcended people’s normal
political convictions to say, “In this case, I am voting for this
person.” That characteristic of the mayoral election frankly
surprised me, because I am not a supporter of mayoral systems,
but I must admit there was a powerful advert for it in that
election.
There is also a powerful advert there for the retention of a
first and second choice. It was not called into play in Greater
Manchester so we do not know what the figures would have been,
but we know the result in those places where it has been called
into play, and people have quite easily adopted the idea that
they have a preferred candidate but, if it cannot be that one,
there is another who would do as their second best. That
development of an overall mandate is a powerful benefit of the
present system, whatever its authorship might be. It might well
be the first time that the noble Lord, , and I have been on
the same side of any discussion.
I strongly support the view that we should delete Clause 11 and
retain the current system of electing our mayors in the big
cities.
(Con)
My Lords, it has been a lengthy debate. I say to the noble Lord,
, that I have not presented any
amendment. I am presenting to your Lordships’ House a Bill which
has been passed by the elected House, and your Lordships are
expressing opinions on it. It is certainly not the Government who
have sought to Christmas-tree the Bill with a generalised debate
on proportional representation. The actors in that are elsewhere
than at the Dispatch Box.
(LD)
My Lords, the amendment which was introduced in the Commons and
is now Clause 11 was a Christmas-tree addition to the Bill by the
Government.
(Con)
I will come to that, my Lords. If the Committee will be
indulgent, I think it has heard quite a lot of debate on this
subject and I will try to come to the point. As I see it, this
very lengthy debate boiled down to two things. First, do we like
first past the post? Regrettably, a lot of your Lordships who
spoke do not seem to like it, although, like the noble Lord,
, having fought a few elections
myself, it seems pretty simple and clear for electors to stick a
cross on a piece of paper and get a result. The noble Lord,
, was not impressed by
that, but the simplicity and clarity of first past the post has a
lot to say for it. The second issue in the debate was: should we
do this now, in this Bill and in these particular elections? I
shall seek to address both of them.
It is irresistible to contemplate the thought of the noble Lord,
, poring over his opinion polls
about how popular PR is. I remind him that, before the referendum
in 2011—you can look it up on Wikipedia if you like—the opinion
polls said how rapturously enthusiastic the majority of the
British public were about PR. When the actual argument came along
and it was put, they voted for first past the post by—I cannot
remember the figure, but I think the noble Lord, , said it was 68%. I would not
advise the noble Lord, , to put too much faith in his
opinion polls, although it is a characteristic of that party.
(LD)
I just make one point of clarification. It is not an opinion poll
but a tracker of opinion over time. If the public should be asked
about changing the system, will the Government ask the people in
the areas with Police and Crime
Commissioners and metro mayors to have a referendum to see
whether we want to change the system that we already have?
My Lords, whether it is a poll or a tracker, the noble Lord is
welcome to look at it. I will persist with my remarks, which will
address the point he just made.
Another argument put by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was that
new parties could not arise. A very great new party arose under
the present system: it is called the Labour Party. It supplanted
the other party, and it did so because it was popular. As we will
see on a later group, one problem is that the parties that want
to make the change are those that are not popular, or generally
less popular.
That is what the debate was about. I listened with great respect
and persistence to the noble Lord, —he spoke for nearly 20
minutes. It could have boiled down to one sentence: he did not
like first past the post and he wanted your Lordships to stop
this proposition. I will now try to address both those
points.
(CB)
My Lords—
If I may say so, the noble Lord had a good go. I will give him
one go.
(CB)
If you make a comment about what somebody said, you need them to
be able to come back and say you have got it wrong. The precise
point I was making in my speech was not that I favoured
PR—although I happen to—but that, irrespective of whether you
support PR, the way the Government are doing this and what they
are doing is wrong. That is exactly the argument I am making. It
is really important not to distort what people are saying in
their speeches.
(Con)
One might have thought, listening to the noble Lord, that he was
talking about his liking for PR, but I will read very carefully
what he said in those 17 minutes.
There is one specific amendment that I should like to address, to
which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, spoke on behalf of the
noble Lord, . Although he is not in his place,
a specific question was asked on Amendment 144D. That amendment
would allow returning officers to establish polling stations for
five days ahead of the day of a poll. Although advance in-person
voting is not available in the UK, voters are already able to
cast their vote in advance of the poll by post. The amendment
would pose significant logistical challenges for returning
officers, including the need to prevent double voting, and could
create an inconsistency across the country as to when and where
people were able to vote in person, so I would not be able to
accept that amendment in this group.
7.00pm
I will address the broader PR question at the end because I am
obliged to in that amendments are before the Committee. One
reason why these proposals are in the Bill is that it is actually
an elections Bill, so it is quite a logical place to include
provision relating to elections. Clause 11 moves the voting
system for elections for Police and Crime
Commissioners in England and Wales, the Mayor of London,
combined authority mayors and local authority mayors in England
to the simple majority voting system—first past the post. I say
to the noble Lord, , whose efforts in Northern
Ireland I profoundly respect, that the proposals before the
Committee do not affect Northern Ireland. The position within
Northern Ireland to address the particular nature of that
polarised society is outwith this piece of legislation.
The first past the post system is robust, secure and provides
strong local accountability. I have listened with interest to the
exegesis of successive Conservative manifestos, and it is no
secret that the Conservative Party supports first past the post.
That is our position. In the 2019 manifesto, we said:
“We will continue to support the First Past the Post system of
voting”.
We do and we are, and we believe that moving to first past the
post will make it easier for the public to express a clear
preference.
Even the noble Lord, , was telling us about the
tremendous complexity of these forms that came in that made
people confused. He says they can be changed but first past the
post is simple and easy. It is well understood, trusted and will
reduce complexity for voters and administrators alike.
We have an Elections Bill. We have a party committed to the
promotion of first past the post. What happened? What happened
was the 2021 election. The noble Lord, , was kind enough to refer to
comments I made at an earlier stage. Perhaps I could remind the
Committee—I think he did give these figures; they are correct and
they bear hearing again—that the overall rejection rate in the
May 2021 elections was 0.8% in local council elections, 2.7%
for Police and Crime
Commissioners and 4.3% for the Mayor of London.
In the 2021 London mayoral elections, with this supplementary
vote that some who have spoken are so keen on, almost 5% of the
total votes in the first round were rejected. That is 114,201
ballots rejected. On second preferences, 265,353 voters were
invalidated because their second preference was cast for the same
candidate as the first, so they were not particularly bothered
about having a supplementary choice, one might infer. Some
319,978 second preferences were unmarked and 7,000 people voted
for far too many candidates.
Given that, it can hardly be contested that the system that we
have did not cause confusion. These figures are significantly
higher than at elections run under first the post. We had this
4.3% rejection but at the last general election under the tried
system that some of us prefer, just 0.36% of ballots were
rejected, including, no doubt, some that were deliberately
spoiled. That is the circumstance that has changed. There is an
elections Bill, there is a Government who have given a commitment
to promote and support first past the post and there is clear
evidence in the Electoral Commission report that came out in
September that there are problems with the supplementary vote
system.
Clause 11, as well as reflecting those things—and I am sorry to
say this to some noble Lords who have spoken; I know that they do
not like it—reflects the preference of British voters as
expressed in the 2011 referendum. I am sorry this is the case.
Two-thirds of people voted in favour of retaining first past the
post for parliamentary elections in the 2011 referendum. Faced
with that—
(Lab)
The noble Lord is characterising my vote. It was against the
alternative vote system and not for first past the post. We voted
on an alternative vote system. That is not what the Minister is
suggesting the vote was on.
(Con)
My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord has been here all
through the debate, but I maintain the position that the
Electoral Commission has reported. I have given the facts to the
Committee on the problems that arose under the supplementary vote
system.
(CB)
My Lords, with respect, the Minister partially reported what the
Electoral Commission said. It pointed to the fact that the level
of rejections in the 2016 election was 1.9%. It said the single
biggest issue in the 2021 election was the design of the form.
Those are critical factors in forming a judgment about the voting
system.
(Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord says let us have a look at 2016. The
noble Lord also said not to pay any attention to the 2017
Conservative Party manifesto which is explicit on this point
before the Committee. He wants to go back to 2016 for one thing
and not back to 2017 for another. I think the noble Lord is
rather picking and choosing his arguments. I wish to make
progress—
(Lab)
The Minister made an important point in his argument about the
2011 referendum. That was on first past the post for Westminster
elections. Is the Government’s contention that they want to see
first past the post for all elections in the UK, including the
Scottish and Welsh Parliaments and the London Assembly? If that
is so, why have they not introduced that in this Bill? Why pick
on this particular electoral choice?
(Con)
My Lords, I am speaking to what is before the Committee at the
moment. As far as the Scottish and Welsh elections are concerned,
the noble Lord knows very well that there is devolution, which
this Government respect.
I will respond to what the noble Lord said about the London
Assembly. It involves rather more complex issues in terms of the
Assembly’s potential make-up. We will be considering further how
these principles could be applied to the London Assembly and
perhaps promoting the use of first past the post, but we are open
to representations on how that could be implemented. For the
moment, the proposition is on these specific elections, against
the background I have described: the Government committed to
first past the post, the Elections Bill and the evidence of
problems in 2021.
I turn to the broader amendments—which I must because they are
before the Committee—from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and the
noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. It is always the less
popular parties which clamour for PR. They want to introduce a
new clause abolishing the use of first past the post at
parliamentary general elections held more than six months after
the passage of the Bill. For the reasons I have already
discussed, we cannot accept that. First past the post ensures a
clear link between elected representatives and constituents in a
manner that other voting systems do not. The noble Lord, Lord
Murphy, was compelling on that point.
The new clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is not
clear even on what sort of electoral system he wants to
introduce—that is the most bizarre thing about the amendment that
he is asking your Lordships to agree with. He wants to get rid of
the present system within two years, but he does not say what
would happen if an election came along before that or in the
period where there was uncertainty because a new system would
require further primary legislation to enact it. There is a real
risk, if we went down the road proposed by the noble Lord, that
we might not have an established legal method as to how Members
of the other place were elected. To be confronted with this
question mark of an amendment when the Government are charged
with being frivolous—I think the proponents of this amendment are
frivolous. All we know from the noble Lord’s amendment is that he
wants a system that would have had, over the past five
parliamentary general elections, a mean average Gallagher
proportionality index of less than 10—that will get them jumping
around in the pubs in Saltaire and Moulsecoomb, I am sure.
(LD)
I am sure that the Minister knows that this is copied from the
SNP amendment in the Commons. One may talk about umpteen
different proportional systems—and no electoral system is
perfect, of course—but there is a choice to be made, putting it
simply, between the Irish and the Scottish and Welsh systems. I
prefer the Irish, but I think it would be appropriate to have
some consultation among parties before a decision was finally
taken. The point that a number of us have been making throughout
the Bill is that, on constitutional matters such as this, it
would be appropriate to aim for some consensus among the parties,
rather than have each party—as in our aggressive two-party
system—changing the rules to favour itself.
(Con)
The noble Lord has completely failed to answer the core question.
He has thought about this amendment and tabled it, it is here on
the list and in it he says:
“The simple majority system must not be used for any
Parliamentary general election after the end of the period of six
months beginning on the day on which this Act is passed.”
Who knows when the end of the Session will be, but let us say
that this Act is fortunate enough to get on to the statute book,
that means that for any election in 2023 or 2024, we would not be
allowed to use first past the post—if your Lordships agreed to
the amendment that the Liberal Democrats have put before the
Committee, supported by the Green group—but would have to
flounder around to find some other system, which the noble Lord
will not specify, which would have a mean average Gallagher
proportionality index of less than 10.
I am accused—the Government are accused—of coming to this
Dispatch Box arguing for first past the post, which people
understand, while the people on the other side come forward with
a kind of canard of nonsense, such as in the noble Lord’s
amendment. We are also asked for citizens’ assemblies, but I can
only repeat what the noble Lord, said, with much greater
eloquence than mine, that we did have a big citizens’ assembly of
nearly 20 million people who decided this in 2011.
I am not convinced by the arguments that I have heard on
proportional representation; I do not believe that this is the
appropriate Bill in which to try to change our system from first
past the post within six months, as is proposed. But, returning
to the core of the question, I do believe that it is reasonable
to have a simpler system than the system that proved so confusing
and led to so many wasted votes in the London elections and that
we should go for first past the post, as the Government have
maintained very clearly. I ask the House to reject the amendments
that have been tabled.
of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I do not want to get into any discussion at all about
what sort of electoral system is best because, to me, that is not
what this clause is about. It is about changing the system
without any consultation at all. Much of this Bill has had no
consultation or pre-legislative scrutiny. Our concern—my big
concern—is that lack of consultation, working with local people
about the proposals. With the changes to the mayoral system and
the PCCs, but the mayoral system in particular, it is extremely
disappointing that the Government decided to bring these in—very,
very late and after they had been told originally that it was out
of scope. That, to me, is the big problem with Clause 11. I am
disappointed that the Minister did not address my concerns around
the fact that it was disrespectful to the House and that an
Elections Bill should have more consideration.
7.15pm
(Con)
I am sorry that the noble Baroness—for whom I have the greatest
possible respect, as she knows—feels that way. The House of
Commons did not seem to regard it as disrespectful. I have
submitted that there is nothing novel or unusual about first past
the post. It is not one of the kinds of systems that is
suggested. The Government have made it clear to the electorate
that they wish to maintain and support first past the post. We
have an Elections Bill, we have the evidence of the difficulties
caused in the London mayoral elections, and I think it is
reasonable for the Government to seek to address that. Others may
have different opinions, but I think Parliament would be remiss
in not considering whether there is a better system than that
which led to hundreds of thousands of wasted votes in the London
elections last spring.
of Ullock (Lab)
I have the greatest respect for the Minister but—with the
greatest respect—that really did not address the issue. However,
in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
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