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Mrs. Dunwoody: I do not think that the job is meant to be done in the terms that we understand. The purpose of Members elected under a list system is to do exactly as they are told by the people who decide their position on the list. As long as that is clear, there is no conflict of interest.
Sir Brian Mawhinney: I hope that I will not wreck the hon. Lady's reputation, but I entirely agree and I shall come on to that point shortly. The Home Secretary told the all-party electoral reform group recently that, for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, it was important to maintain a constituency link, but that it was not important to do so for the European Parliament. Indeed, the Home Office's press release states:
- "People do not enjoy, or need,"--
- "the same close links with their MEP as they do with their MP, so it is possible to elect MEPs on a regional basis."
Mr. Hogg: Does my right hon. Friend agree that although Members of the European Parliament have a smaller constituency case load, they deal with some constituency work involving personal cases? Under the list system, it is difficult to know to whom an individual could turn.
Sir Brian Mawhinney: My right hon. and learned Friend is correct and I agree with him. He might have added that, increasingly, businesses make representations on European matters and I know that MEPs for the area that covers my constituency spend a fair time dealing with those matters.
The second point that arises from the Bill is that it will bring party politics into what has hitherto been a representational role. As a Member of Parliament, I act for all my constituents, whether they voted for me or not. I know that that is true of the Home Secretary, because I recently heard a complimentary story about action that he took on behalf of some constituents who probably did not vote for him. I also suspect that it is true of most hon. Members. It is certainly true of Robert Sturdy,the MEP for Cambridgeshire. However, in future, such representatives will be more indebted to their party than to their electors.
The third point is that the Bill will throw away the personal and individual basis of our electoral process. Every vote I have cast has been for a person--a name on a ballot--to represent my interests. I have voted for an individual with strengths and weaknesses, with skills and experience, with a family and a job history. Now I will get to vote only for a party. That is a profound difference and a profoundly backward step. Of course I am proud of my party, just as the Home Secretary is proud of his. I am proud of its history, its achievements, its statesmen and
women and its beliefs. Obviously, I want people to identify with those party aspirations, but I want to vote for a person whom I can test, examine and get to know. The Bill will prevent me from doing that.
What am I offered in the Bill? I am offered one vote for a party, which could give me up to 11 Members of the European Parliament--from four in the north to 11 in the south-east. One vote for one party will produce multiple MEPs. Of course I would want all 11 in that region to be Conservatives. The Home Secretary would want them all to be Labour.
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
Of course he would. The House does not believe the Home Secretary. The voter will not have a chance to have some from one party and some from another, if that is what he chooses. The House should be in no doubt, that is a fundamental change to the way in which we do business.
Mr. Beith:
First, under the present system, a voter cannot choose to have one Member from one party and one from another. Secondly, if he does not like the person offered by his party, as has happened to some Conservatives over the years, as well as to some in the Labour party and no doubt to some in my party, his only option is to reject the party's choice. He has no way of substituting another individual from that party whom he would prefer.
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is in favour of the change. I understand that he has no prospect of getting into government unless proportional representation in Europe bounces across to this House. However, I do not accept the premise from which he is working and I am not impressed by his argument.
Mr. Shepherd:
Our politics is often dominated by great issues. In the run-up to the European elections, economic and monetary union will be central. When there are different views on that great issue within all the parties, how can we identify those on a list who are for or against it? The apparatchik rule of central party control will confuse the electorate and reduce the number of votes cast.
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
My hon. Friend makes a strong point.
What is envisaged is even more restrictive than what we have talked about so far. The party, not the voters, will decide the order of people to be elected. Surely Ken Coates, Labour MEP for Nottingham, North and Chesterfield, was right to say that with such a system
What was the reaction of new Labour to the dissidents in its ranks? Open? Tolerant? Transparent? Modern? It gagged them. They were told that they could not discuss the issue, that they could not criticise the party and that they could not complain. That is new Labour.
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
There is no point in the right hon. Gentleman shaking his head. That is his party. Ken Coates has further said:
The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who is not in his place--I wish that he were--thinks that the whole thing is political suicide. The hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) has said:
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
If he were in his place, as he is--
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
I know. If he were in his place, as he is, I would give him an opportunity to confirm the accuracy of that quotation.
Mr. Burden:
I know that I have shaved off my moustache, but I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman did not notice me. I oppose the centralisation
Sir Brian Mawhinney:
The hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris) made his own decision. I regret that he has left the party. I hope that that answers the question.
From Aberdeen to Eastbourne, from St. Ives and Bangor to Norwich, the message to anyone who wants to be a new Labour MEP is clear: "Don't worry about the voters; just mug up on the Mandelson mantra. Learn how to creep and surrender to Millbank thought control. Remember that the party always comes before the voters and that the party is always right."
How will all that come about? The Bill says:
At the electoral reform meeting, the Home Secretary found it necessary to warn the Liberal Democrats not to have an argument in public about the closed list, because otherwise the Tories would capitalise on it. Now he knows that it is not the Tories who will capitalise on it, but the members of his party who are so dissatisfied with the Bill that they will want to examine it further.
What is the redeeming feature of the new system--a redeeming feature so strong that it overrides all the arguments against the Bill that have been aired tonight? Perhaps it is its simplicity. The present system is pretty simple: one voter, one candidate, one vote; count them up and there is one winner.
What is the new system like? I turned to the Home Office handout to find out:
I turned next to the Library research paper:
The Bill offers to so-called new Britain, new Labour's brave new world: no constituencies, no link between an individual MEP and an area, no individual to vote for, no choice of individuals to vote for, no way in which to buck the control of the party machine, and no understanding by most people of what they are doing or why.
"We will end up with a bunch of new Labour clones. The MEPs elected under this system will not be accountable to their constituents, but to Peter Mandelson--this will be nothing but a recipe for creeping."
Whatever Ken Coates's skills, he does not write editorials for The Times. Lest Labour Members are inclined to dismiss him, let me quote an editorial of 23 October, which says:
"The party's actions show all the worrying signs of a leadership that has become obsessed with control."
It continues:
"Whatever their personal interest, the dissidents are right to protest against an electoral system that puts the power of selection in the hands of the party's centre, leaving none for voters or party members. This is bad for democracy and will be bad, eventually, for the parties too. The Government plans to introduce the worst possible kind of PR for the European elections. Its 'closed list' system allows voters no say over which candidate they want: they can merely vote for a party, which will then appoint its own placemen to the Parliament."
It concludes:
"As it is, 1999's European elections promise to be a triumph of party manipulation over genuine voter choice."
The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich put it at least as elegantly.
"If an MP can be gagged and stopped, then democracy is on the way out."
Hugh Kerr, MEP for Essex, West and Hertfordshire, East said that the gagging
"shows that new Labour is increasingly authoritarian and centralised."
The Sunday Telegraph tells us that the national executive committee rushed through a new disciplinary code specifically banning MEPs from campaigning against proportional representation.
"Many MPs are concerned about the loss of constituency identity by going for a regional list of candidates."
It is a pity that he is not in his place today. He would have found that more of his colleagues than he realised share that concern. According to The Guardian, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Burden) is opposed to centralism and people being barred from voting for individuals. If he were in his place--[Laughter.]
"The system of election . . . shall be a regional list system"
and that
"A vote may be cast for a registered party".
The Home Secretary does not want the spin doctors to refer to it as a closed list system, but it is. It is closed to the public, but open to new Labour control freaks.
"1. The first seat is allocated to the individual or party with the highest vote. Where the seat is allocated to a party it goes to the first candidate on that party's list.
Is that what I am supposed to tell my constituents? I wonder whether there is an easier, simpler way than one person, one vote, one winner.
2. The second seat is allocated in the same way except that if the first seat has gone to a party, that party's total is divided by two.
3. The process continues until all the seats have been allocated. At all stages party totals are divided by the number of seats that party has already been allocated, plus one."
"The . . . system used aims to allocate each seat to the party which would at that point have the highest average vote per seat. The total votes of each party are divided by the number of seats it already has plus the next seat to be allocated. Thus the party totals are divided first by 1 [0 seats plus 1] then by 2 [ie 1 seat plus 1] then by3 [2 seats plus 1] etc. The first seat goes to the party with the largest number in the table below, the next seat to the next highest number etc."
25 Nov 1997 : Column 826
Is that supposed to be an improvement? Is that supposed to be what the Home Secretary started by telling us was a simpler system? The House does not believe a word of it.
The Home Secretary told the electoral reform group that he was thinking of holding the 1999 European elections on a Sunday. Perhaps in his winding-up speech, the Under-Secretary will tell us whether that is still likely.
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