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7.21 pm
Mr. David Drew (Stroud): This is an important debate that shows us along an important path towards electoral reform. As one who has long opposed the arrogance of first past the post, I find it pleasing that, on the back of Scotland and Wales, we are prepared to change our European electoral system. That is long overdue. I strongly welcome the move towards proportionality as a means of achieving that.
I also welcome the approach of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, which I imagine will now be called the "Straw compromise". He is open to considering different approaches to the issue. That is important in its own right, because the history of electoral reform in Britain has been one of listening to people from different political persuasions and of no party political persuasion. That shows the strength of the movement.
I declare an interest as a member of Charter 88 from its inception. The strength of the electoral reform movement has been borne out by the way in which we have managed to pull together across the political divide and produce a coherent strategy. What may technically be called the part-open list approach offers us the best of both worlds. We shall get a regional list system, which involves a vote for a party but offers the electorate the ability to choose the people whom they most want to represent them. I hope that we shall consider--as the Government have apparently done--how we can put together the best possible way of electing representatives by a system which I believe will be fairer and more representative, and will bring to the fore a regional perspective.
One reason why I have always supported electoral reform is that I strongly believe in using the appropriate method for the different electoral challenges that we face. I am more than happy, and open-minded enough, to believe that we can have our cake and eat it. At the outset, we could have considered the single transferable vote. We have come down in favour of a regional list system, one of the strengths of which is that it allows checks and balances. It allows us to do things differently for Scotland and Wales from how we do things for our Westminster Parliament and our European Parliament. That is a strength of the electoral reform movement.
Mr. Gerald Bermingham (St. Helens, South):
I have listened with interest to my hon. Friend. If he is prepared to consider a single transferable vote, would it not be sensible to use it within existing European constituencies? That would retain the link between Members and constituents while keeping some idea of proportional representation.
Mr. Drew:
I welcome my hon. Friend's comment. As with anything, we must plump for the appropriate system for the assembly concerned. For all sorts of reasons, the regional list system was chosen. I would not have been unhappy to consider STV for the European elections but we have chosen an alternative system. More important than the particular system that we have chosen is the fact that it provides checks and balances in respect of the different ways in which we elect our representatives for different assemblies. As long as we can run that on a fair-minded basis, and recognise that the electorate will now get a choice of person as well as of party, we can have the best of all worlds.
I welcome the Bill because of the checks and balances that it offers and because I represent a south-western constituency. All too often, we have ended up in the south-west with one party, or one and a bit parties, dominant. That is neither fair nor reasonable when people want to know that their vote counts. Understandably, because their vote counts for both a party and a person, they want to have some knowledge of whom they are voting for, even though they may not get that person elected under the present system. With the alternatives that are being made available, they can make their votes count. That is why proportionality is such an important principle.
People in the south-west will be able to vote Labour on the understanding that they will elect Labour representatives. While we may have been fortunate in the roll of the dice in the May general election, we must find systems that have checks and balances and that allow people to know that their vote counts. That is whyI support this approach, which brings together alternatives that mean that people know, when they vote in different elections for different bodies, that, while their votes may count in different ways, they will bring forth a true representative democracy. I believe that that will lead to increased turnouts. People will know that their votes are being collected and used properly. Unlike previous European elections, I expect that more people will vote when we go to the polls next time because people will see that their vote counts. I welcome that.
Finally, I should like to say something that might sound strange coming from a Labour Member. In 1989, it was a scandal that, although 14.9 per cent. of the electorate voted for the Greens--a party I have fought at parliamentary and local level, and whose principles and policies I do not support in many respects--no one from that party was elected to the assembly in Europe. The most recent election was the first in which Liberal Democrats were elected under our bizarre first-past-the-post system. Looking at my hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who is nodding, I can say that it is wrong that, in the past, people's votes did not count. At least we have remedied that in part, albeit not well enough.
Mr. David Curry (Skipton and Ripon):
The Home Secretary announced that the Bill was designed to improve the democratic process, and promptly almost collapsed in a fit of giggles. That clearly sums up his
Some of the speeches tonight have caused the House to resemble a set of engineers who are fascinated by what lies under the bonnet of the bus, but occasionally forgetful of the fact that there are passengers on the bus and that their prime concern should be to deliver the passengers to their destination, rather than to be preoccupied with the state of the plugs. We must not become completely fascinated by electoral systems.
Although I enjoyed the Home Secretary's cheap jibe about the Belgians--I should point out that Monsieur d'Hondt was almost certainly a Fleming, rather than a Walloon, and that the correct form of address is Mynheer d'Hondt--we should address ourselves more precisely to the nature of the system we are trying to sustain and to how the electors benefit from that system, rather than simply enjoying its intricacies.
I spent 10 years in the European Parliament and would accept that the role of an MEP is not the same as that of a Member of Parliament. The people an MEP deals with tend to be more institutional, in the sense that one's three major client groups tend to be local government and public bodies, education, and business.
That is the nature of the European Parliament--as an organisation, it has powers to amend and now to prevent legislation, and those tend to be the groups most affected by such measures. One does not wish to ignore the important individual cases that arise, but they do not rank in the same order as they would for a Member of Parliament in the surgeries to which the Home Secretary referred. Incidentally, he is jolly lucky if his surgeries are thinly enough attended to let him get through them on a Friday evening.
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