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Reform of Quarantine Regulations
Mr. David Amess accordingly presented a Bill to allow the importation of pet animals from the European Union and rabies-free countries without quarantine upon proof of vaccinations, blood tests and permanent identification by microchip; to improve standards in quarantine kennels; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 12 December, and to be printed [Bill 87].
Orders of the Day
European Parliamentary Elections Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
5.14 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Government were elected in May with firm commitments to improve the democratic process in this country. As the House knows, our programme of constitutional reform is already well advanced. It gives me great pleasure to add another item to the list of manifesto commitments that are being fulfilled.
In the manifesto, we promised to introduce a proportional voting system for elections to the European Parliament; the Bill does just that. It will enable the 1999 and subsequent elections to the Parliament to be conducted using a proportionally based regional list system.
The Bill has had a long genesis. Twenty years ago yesterday, a Bill to provide direct elections to the European Parliament was introduced into the House following a White Paper in April 1977. The Bill initially provided for a regional list system, but in December 1977, the House voted by about 100 votes to reject that system and instead to put in its place one based on first past the post. It is that system which has remained in place ever since.
The first direct elections to the European Parliament took place in June 1979. Since then, for almost all of the past 20 years, the European Union has been attempting to ensure that elections to the European Parliament in each of the member states are based on common principles. The system that we are proposing in the Bill is in conformity with those principles.
A regional list system of elections to the European Parliament has been Labour party policy for a number of years. In 1993, Professor Raymond Plant, as he then was, who is now a distinguished Member of another place, produced a report for another place--I am sorry, for the Labour party--
Sir Brian Mawhinney (North-West Cambridgeshire):
It is another place.
Mr. Straw:
Well, these days it is very easy to get a place.
Professor Plant produced a report recommending a regional list system for those elections. That policy was endorsed by the Labour party conference the same year, confirmed by the Joint Consultative Committee on Constitutional Reform in February 1997 and included in our formal election manifesto.
Before discussing the Bill, let me say something about electoral reform generally. I believe that it is reasonably well known that I do not have a reputation as an evangelist for proportional representation for the Westminster Parliament. However, I have never been opposed to proportional representation for elections to the European Parliament nor, in certain circumstances, for local elections.
It is of the utmost importance that any voting system is appropriate for the nature and functions of the body that is being elected. My arguments against proportional representation for the Westminster Parliament have been based on the mathematical and political difficulty of securing an identity between votes cast, seats gained and power secured. It is possible to devise a voting system where the seats won are proportional to the votes cast--but there follows a serious conundrum. The greater the proportionality of votes to seats, the less may be the proportionality of votes to power.
PR systems typically give disproportionate power to the smaller minority parties, while first-past-the-post and similar systems with single-member constituencies give power to the largest plurality and so help secure a system where the proportionality, not between votes and seats, but between votes and power, may be the greater.
However, those characteristics of proportional representation and the consequences that may go with it--unstable Governments--can apply only where a Government are being elected. There are fundamental differences between the European Parliament and our United Kingdom Parliament. The European Parliament is a representative body; it is not a Parliament from which a Government are drawn.
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich):
As it is clear to those of us who have served in the European Parliament that many other European countries envy the connection between elected Members and their constituencies and understand that it has one enormous advantage over a system under which the parties control the list, will my right hon. Friend give us the real justification for the system that he is proposing this afternoon?
Mr. Straw:
I accept entirely what my hon. Friend says in terms of the Westminster Parliament. She has outlined one of the great strengths of our system of representation, based on single-Member constituencies. It is well worth remembering that the root of the word "Commons" is the French word "commune", meaning a community. I believe--and I am sure that my view is shared by anybody who has been a Minister or a shadow Minister--that one of the enormous strengths of our system is that, however high and mighty we think we may be, the fact that we have to go back to our constituency on a Friday evening, sit in a community centre and receive representations from our constituents, gives us a direct link to our constituents in a way that it is impossible to replicate under a system of multi-member proportional representation.
However, there is a world of difference between a constituency that one can comprehend in terms of its size--such as Crewe, Blackburn and similar places or parts of cities, which broadly accord with the majority of communities--and the vast constituencies that form the basis of representation in the European Parliament, where the direct connection between the Member and his constituents is very much more tenuous.
Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle):
In the United States, Congressmen often represent districts with substantially larger electorates than those proposed by the right hon. Gentleman for the European Parliament. There is a direct relationship between those big electorates and
Mr. Straw:
What the hon. Gentleman says is accurate, but Members of Congress in the United States have huge support--typically they have 40 or 50 staff to enable them to achieve the connection. They also have strong media backing and are constantly campaigning as the elections take place every two years.
Moreover, there is a critical difference that strengthens the connection between a constituency and a Member of Parliament or a Member of Congress. In both cases, we are talking about people who act to form a Government--in this country, they act directly to form a Government and in the United States, they act to support and form part of a Government--and to ensure that the Government are provided with revenue. In the European Parliament, those considerations do not apply. The European Parliament does not form the basis of a Government, but is simply a representative body.
Had the hon. Gentleman been correct in his assertion, we would have seen over the past 20 years a close connection between the European Parliament's constituencies and its Members. However, generally speaking, that is not the case.
Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham):
Even granted the truth in what the Home Secretary is saying, it would have been possible for the Labour Government to come forward with proposals that provided for proportional representation, but maintained a constituency base for the electorate. The Home Secretary has not said why he has chosen the one PR system that ensures that there is no constituency basis.
Mr. Straw:
I shall come to that point--I have only just started my speech. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is dissatisfied with the explanation that I shall give later, I shall happily give way to him again.
Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed):
I merely wanted to deal with a myth. The Home Secretary is making a perfectly reasonable case for the different nature of the European Parliament, but lest he should imagine that it is impossible to have a constituency link in a PR system, may I suggest that he visits the Irish Republic, where Members elected under the single transferable vote system are well aware of their link to constituencies and most certainly spend their Friday nights addressing constituency problems?
Mr. Straw:
I have studied voting systems for more than 30 years and I have kept a close eye on the politics of the Irish Republic, where the Irish have a system to which they are attached. I have always found it difficult to understand a system whereby the voters' will does not always appear to be translated into either a change of Government or the sustaining of a Government. In the Irish Republic, Governments have changed every three years with extraordinary regularity.
We are dealing not with the election of a Parliament which then sustains a Government, but with the election of a representative body in Europe. The role of a Member
of the European Parliament is different from that of a Member of Parliament, yet they are both directly elected by the same method.
The United Kingdom returns only 87 Members to the European Parliament and, quite apart from the disconnection between the constituencies and the Members, the huge constituencies that we currently have mean that disproportionate results are greatly magnified. As a result, even a small swing in the vote can lead to a substantial difference in the number of seats, as the fluctuating composition of the UK delegation to the European Parliament over the past 20 years has demonstrated.
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