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Mr. Robert Syms (Poole): Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that, under the "additional Member" system, there are two categories of Member of Parliament--those who represent constituencies, and those who are on a party list? That changes the nature of politics and representative democracy, because it involves people with different responsibilities.
Mr. Burden: The hon. Gentleman is entirely right in that, under the "additional Member" system, Members of Parliament would arrive in the House of Commons, or whatever legislature was involved, by different routes; but I was making another point. It was said earlier that a proportional system would destroy the link between Member and constituency, and that is not so. Under the "additional Member" system, there is a link betweenthe individual Member and the constituency. There may be another category of Members by virtue of the top-up system, but that is a different question. It may be desirable; the hon. Gentleman clearly considers it undesirable, but I believe that it could introduce a diversity and richness from which the House could benefit. I do not see why we need have any great attachment to the idea that Members of Parliament must all arrive here by one route.
We can debate that when the time comes, of course, but I think that we need to be clear about our facts. It is erroneous to say that a proportional system inevitably means destroying the link between an individual Member and a constituency. Moreover, there are other proportional
systems based on multi-Member constituencies that retain a link between Members and the constituency. The two systems are not in conflict.
That, however, is a debate for another time. Suffice it to say now that I will welcome--my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary reaffirmed the commitment in our manifesto--the early establishment of an independent commission on voting systems, which will examine these questions in detail. I welcome the commitment, both in the manifesto and in the agreement with the Liberal Democrats that was made before the election, for the commission to be charged with recommending a proportional alternative to the first-past-the-post system. I especially welcome the commitment to ensure that it will not be politicians, but the people, who ultimately decide the shape of our Parliament and our parliamentary elections. That is why I am so pleased about the commitment to a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons.
That is not what we are talking about today. We are talking about the electoral system for the European Parliament, which raises different issues. As I have said, I support electoral reform for both Westminster and Europe, but it is entirely possible and logical to support electoral reform and proportional representation for Europe and to oppose it for the House of Commons. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary rightly said, different representative bodies have different functions, and there is no one ideal voting system that is appropriate to all circumstances. The idea that, in principle, thereshould be a single Member is not appropriate to all circumstances. At times, the shadow Home Secretary seemed to suggest that he considered that to be a principle; he should look at our current system of local government, which, in most parts of the country, is based on multi-member constituencies.
One principle strikes me as important--a principle that I mentioned at the beginning of my speech. If we are to be taken seriously in Europe, and if we are to have a representative body in the European Parliament that will be credible both at home and in Europe, is it too much to ask that the seats won by parties should broadly reflect the support that those parties receive in the country?
Mr. Shepherd:
We are talking about representative systems, and I am mindful of what actually happens in Europe. I personally feel that this represents the degradation of democracy, but I will cite my reasons.
The European Parliament voted on the Maastricht treaty. All the various systems pulled together with their representatives in Strasbourg, and voted on the treaty. It was almost a hallelujah performance. They acclaimed the treaty--but what happened in the electorates that they supposedly represented when it was put as a direct proposition? The hon. Gentleman will have noted what happened in France, where the result was 49 per cent. to 51 per cent., and Denmark actually rejected the treaty. The system that the hon. Gentleman proposes is no more representative than a dance on a drum.
Mr. Burden:
The hon. Gentleman's views on Maastricht are well known, but I have witnessed debates in the European Parliament. I should point out that, although the vote in France was close, it was in favour of the Maastricht treaty.
Although there is some strength in the way in which the House conducts its affairs, it could learn one or two things from other legislatures. The confrontational "one gang against another" style that we have seen here--I am pleased that the present Government are trying to do something about it--does not feature to the same extent in the European Parliament. Of course, the European Parliament has all sorts of weaknesses--it does many things of which I do not approve, and many things that could be done better--but, if we are to improve the workings of the House of Commons, we can learn a good deal from what happens elsewhere. I know that thehon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) wants to do that, as he has commented on these matters many times. We should not dismiss the traditions of other legislatures quite so quickly.
Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed):
The Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill. It gives us an opportunity to provide fair voting for Europe. It fulfils a commitment that successive British Governments have made through treaty obligations, and it implements an agreement that was made publicly between my party and the Labour party before the election and put to the voters at the election--an agreement that we would reform the system for European elections. Although we would suggest some improvements to the Bill, the Home Secretary has already said that he has an open mind on the key point. We applaud the determination with which the Government have produced the Bill in sufficient time to ensure that the next European elections are fought according to a fair system.
I was amazed to hear the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney) first attacking the Home Secretary for appearing to change his mind, and then revealing that his main criticism of the Bill was the very point on which the Home Secretary had said that he was willing to listen to arguments. At no stage did the right hon. Gentleman suggest that he might actually vote for amendments, such as those that we shall table, that would achieve his objective by introducing a system with more voter choice within the regional list structure.
At the moment, we have a closed list system of one, with no proportionality. The total outcome is nowhere near proportional, and people who strongly disapprove of their party's one candidate can effectively express that disapproval only by voting against their own party, and perhaps bringing about the election of a candidate from another. Many people are not willing to do that.
Much as many of us like to promote the idea of the individual in politics, there is no doubt that most people, at every opportunity, make a party choice. That is a fact
of political life, from which many of us often gain. There is a myth surrounding the British political system, pretending that voters have nothing to do with parties. Party names used to be kept off ballot papers on that principle, but that is long gone. Parties are central to the British political system.
We value the opportunity that can be given to voters to affect the way in which parties determine who is to stand on their behalf, and to express their views directly, as they will be able to do in the referendum on the electoral system for Westminster. We welcome the Government's commitment to that.
The first-past-the-post system as used in the European Parliament elections produces the most outlandish outcomes, bearing no relation to the votes cast. The system applies only in England, Scotland and Wales. The right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire, who comes from Northern Ireland, never explained why it was acceptable for Northern Ireland to have a proportional system, when it was anathema to him for England, Scotland and Wales to have one.
What has the system produced in Great Britain? In 1984, the Conservatives won 45 seats on 38.8 per cent. of the vote, while Labour won just 32 seats on only 4 per cent. fewer votes. At that stage, British seats made up about one fifth of the Parliament, so misrepresentation of the votes cast in Britain could have a significant effect on the political balance.
It is as if one county in England suddenly decided, of its own accord, to run a completely different electoral system for Westminster from that of the rest of the country, and had enough seats to make a profound difference to the balance of the parties. That clearly could not continue. We have a treaty obligation to make a change.
Had the votes in 1984 been counted on a proportional basis, the Conservative representation in the European Parliament would have been reduced by almost one third. We won no seats at all, despite winning more than half the number of votes obtained by Labour. In the 1989 election, the Green party won 15 per cent. of the votes--a respectable tally for a party that came from nowhere, and has since returned there--and got no seats. That is not a fair outcome. The Conservatives won 32 seats on only twice as many votes as the Green party, which got none.
In 1994, Labour got 74 per cent. of the seats on 44 per cent. of the votes. That is 25 more seats than it would have won on a proportional system. The Tories got 28 per cent. of the votes and 21 per cent. of the seats. We got 16 per cent. of the vote and 2 per cent. of the seats. The system produces the most ludicrous results in terms of the number of representatives sent to the European Parliament by each party.
To claim that the system is retained in order to preserve a sacred link between the voter and his representative in Euro-constituencies simply flies in the face of reality. If any hon. Member goes out into the street and asks any passer-by to name his Member of the European Parliament--or, better still, to name his European constituency--he will get a pretty low tally. It can sometimes be embarrassing to do that for Westminster Members of Parliament, but we would get a much better total for them than for Members of the European Parliament, for whom the results would be derisory.
The system does not work in single-Member constituencies, because they are too large to be treated as we try to treat Westminster constituencies. Legitimate questions can be asked about the role of the voter in relation to the candidate. For example: how does one get rid of a Member whom one does not want? Earlier, I called that the Tatton question. It is significant that, in those circumstances, to avoid putting people in the dilemma of being only able to elect someone of a different party, two parties stood down.
The scale of European constituencies is such that it is almost impossible to get rid of someone of whose financial dealings one disapproves or who represents a point of view that is completely alien to that of most of the party. That has not happened in any European constituency since the system was introduced. Members of various parties are most critical of their Members of the European Parliament, but they have never yet mounted a successful campaign to get them unseated by the electorate.
It would be better to introduce some voter choice into the regional list system, as some other countries do. By doing so, we would involve the voters more fully in the election. We must try to increase the participation of British people in European elections. We shall not do that by giving them a system in which the outcome in most constituencies is certain, giving them no chance of securing representation for their favoured party, which is what happens now.
Proportionality should increase the attractiveness of taking part in an election, and it would be increased further if we allowed people to use their votes to change the order of candidates. That was attempted in 1977, when options were put before the House to allow voters to have one vote only, which they would give to a candidate but which would also count as the party vote.
The disadvantage of that system from the Government's point of view is that it does not involve the party in setting out a preferred choice. It is reasonable to say that a party should be allowed to put to the electorate its view of what the order should be, even if the electorate can then modify or disrupt that view.
We have proposed a compromise, given our known preference for the single transferable vote system, in which people cast a party vote but can, if they prefer, choose which candidate should be ranked highest. If enough people do that, we can ensure that someone lower down the party's list has the best chance of being elected.
It has been argued that, in such a system, it is possible for someone to get many--indeed a majority--of the preference votes and still not be elected, but that is because the majority of people have declared themselves content with the party choice by voting the straight party ticket. A successful rebellion, as it were, involves a majority of the party's voters seeking to overturn its choice. That opportunity should be there.
I hope that the consideration launched by the Home Secretary today will lead him and his hon. Friends--and, indeed, Conservative Members--to accept that the regional list system would be better with that element of choice. We shall certainly table an amendment to that effect and, if the Government want to improve its wording or tighten it up, we shall welcome that.
The Home Secretary launched, perhaps unwisely, in some detail on the subject of the relative merits of different divisor systems. Suffice it to say that the Sainte-Lague system helps to ensure a more proportional result, particularly if many of the constituencies each have a relatively small number of MEPs. That is because the standard Government regions and nations have been chosen. For example, we have a five-seat constituency in Wales and a four-seat constituency in the north of England.
It should be fairly obvious to hon. Members that a high vote would be needed to get a minority candidate elected in a four or five-seat constituency, so the way in which we deal with surplus votes is crucial. The Sainte-Lague divisor would ensure that, on the basis of the general election results, there would be at least a third party representation in Wales, for example. Representation would not be confined to the two largest parties. On the general election results, in Wales Labour would get a disproportionate share of the seats--80 per cent.--on just over 50 per cent. of the vote.
Overall, the Home Secretary is right to say that, given a sufficient number of constituencies of sufficient size, there is not much difference between the two systems but, on the scale of the smaller constituencies, the difference is significant. That may be important, especially in Wales, northern England or other smaller constituencies. We shall press the Government to reconsider by tabling an amendment.
I welcome the Bill's reference to a cash limit on the amount that parties can spend nationally during the European elections. In a way, a change was inevitable because we are no longer dealing only with single candidates. It is absurd that candidates in elections to Westminster are strictly limited on what they can spend--their agents can go to gaol, as happened to a Labour agent in a constituency that neighbours mine--but nationally, parties can spend as much as they can raise, by whatever means they can raise it. That must change for Westminster. We support the Government's moves in that direction and welcome the inclusion of this provision in the Bill.
Through this Bill, or through electoral registration legislation, we may have to address the legal position of measures that parties might take to get more women on to lists. It is up to parties whether they choose to adopt the methods that Labour has used in the past, or that we have considered, to try to ensure that voters have a fair choice of both sexes, but there are legal problems, as Labour found before the general election. We should define the position more clearly to avoid legal tangles.
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