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Mr. Sayeed: I have a rather non-British name, but I was also elected. One of the problems with the closed-list system as operated by the Labour party is that the order of the candidates is determined by the party machine. This is where most of the objections in the Lords came from. The candidate will feel responsible to the party machine rather than to the electorate. At least John Bowis, Ian Twinn and all other Conservative candidates were selected and put in order by party members at an open election.
Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman is objecting to the internal processes of another party. Our party is run democratically. The Conservative party is now moving
towards that happy state. I understand some of the concerns, but it is a parody of the system that we have used to suggest that selection was carried out simply by the central party apparatus. [Interruption.] Let us be clear that, in transferring to the proposed system of parliamentary elections, we were generously--almost certainly--handing out seats to the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative party. [Interruption.] It is true.
Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
We had to manage that change, which resulted in very many fewer Members of the European Parliament than would otherwise be so, simply as a result of the elections.
Mr. Straw:
I should like to make progress.
Opponents of the closed-list argue that being unable to vote for an individual candidate is somehow undemocratic or, dare I say, un-British. I profoundly disagree. Political parties are a vital and necessary part of our modern democratic process. Voting on party lines is not an alien concept to the electorate of today. As I have already said, each of us in the House stands on closed party lists of one.
It does not lie in the mouths of Conservative Members to suggest that we have an open list--we do not. If they wanted an open list for the Westminster Parliament, they should propose changes in our voting system so that two or three candidates stand for each of the parties, and the voter selects one. That is an open list. In Westminster, we have a closed list, and what we are proposing for the European Parliament is also a closed list.
Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire)
rose--
Mr. Straw:
I want to make progress; this is a relatively short debate.
Under a closed-list system, there is no prospect of an anomalous result. Nothing is hidden from the voter. When voters cast their vote for the party of their choice, they can see the order in which that party's candidates will win seats, and vote with that knowledge. If voters dislike the first candidate on the party's favoured list, they are in exactly the same position as under the first-past-the-post system. Voters can choose not to vote for that party, or grit their teeth and put the party first despite its poor taste in candidates.
The closed-list system has the great benefit of simplicity. That is an important consideration, which we should not ignore. [Interruption.] On Thursday, Conservative Members complained about the Jenkins proposals on the basis that they were complicated. That was one of their many objections. Yet the system that they
are proposing in this debate is gratuitously complicated, and will produce even more perverse results than some systems of proportional representation.
I remind hon. Members of what Professor Patrick Dunleavy and Dr. Simon Hix of the LSE, and Dr. Helen Margetts of Birkbeck college, said in their publication "Counting on Europe":
Mr. Straw:
No, I do not take that as a compliment, much as I admire the hon. Lady. I set out my position on Second Reading on 25 November--almost a year ago; it has been consistently consistent. I made it very clear that the system of voting should be appropriate to the institution that is being elected. Nobody can seriously argue that acting as if the very largeEuropean Parliament constituencies were Westminster constituencies is satisfactory.
Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire):
Some of us are opposed to lists whether they are closed or open. Some of us are opposed to closed lists because of problems of bureaucracy and who controls them, and open lists because members of the same party fight each other for a seat. That is not an argument against proportional representation, because different PR systems can function. I know where I stand on the Lords amendments: I will abstain in the vote, as I did previously. The Government's amendment in lieu proposes a review. I need to know how I stand on that. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that Lord Jenkins will not be in charge of the review?
Mr. Straw:
Lord Jenkins is far too busy to do it. I cannot absolutely guarantee that, but I think that the possibility is remote. I shall quote Lord Jenkins later.
I ask hon. Members on both sides of the House to take into account another consideration before they vote. The Conservative party needs to think about this very carefully. We have been debating this issue for getting on for a year, during which all parties have undergone a selection process and have chosen the candidates for their lists. If Parliament were to reject the Bill, the consequences for the electoral system would be very severe.
Although I acknowledge that the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) did not agree with the principle of the Bill when he spoke on 27 October, he said the following sage words, which Conservative Members ought to heed:
Mr. Straw:
No; I wish to proceed. I know that the right hon. Gentleman wants me to consider very carefully some words in the Jenkins report.
One thing has changed since we discussed this issue at the end of October: the report of the Jenkins commission has been published. We discussed it at some length on Thursday, and I do not want to go over that ground again. I shall just deal with one point, which was raised in the other place, about what the Jenkins report said about open and closed lists. The Jenkins commission was concerned purely and exclusively with elections to this House. We are discussing elections to the European Parliament--a body very different in composition and scope from the other place. As I said a moment ago, the electoral system for the European Parliament--and many other institutions--ought to be appropriate to that institution.
The people of the United Kingdom have always enjoyed close links with their Members of Parliament, and that would remain if the system recommended by the Jenkins commission were adopted--whatever views people take about its merit. By contrast, only 84 MEPs are elected from 11 regions for the whole of Britain. In such circumstances, voters will not be in a position to have detailed knowledge of the candidates or to make informed choices between them.
Lord Jenkins dealt, in his customary elegant prose, with what would happen if we ended up pretending to give voters choice but did not give them information. He says:
"Open list ballot papers are more complicated. The ballot paper will be much longer because all the candidates will have to be listed with tick boxes. People may feel obliged to look over all the names, a lengthy business in the South East region where with 11 seats there could be 40 or more candidates . . . some people such as the elderly, those who have difficulty reading, first time voters, and people who are just attached to the existing way of doing things may dislike the ballot paper or find it confusing . . .
Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest):
Will the right hon. Gentleman take it as a compliment if I suggest that all that he has said in the past half an hour is an excellent argument for sticking to first-past-the-post elections?
A major study of voting systems carried out just after the 1997 general election provided good survey evidence that British voters do not like complicated ballot papers with multiple names and tick boxes and strongly prefer simple short ballot papers."
7.45 pm
"parties have already chosen their candidates. We are coming to the end of the Session and to implement change at this stage would cause chaos and difficulty."--[Official Report, 27 October 1998; Vol. 318, c. 192.]
Mr. Forth:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
"Where that choice offered resembles a caricature of an overzealous American breakfast waiter going on posing an indefinite number of unwanted options",
the system
"becomes both an exasperation and an incitement to the giving of random answers".
It is fine prose, and accurate, too. The report continues:
"In voting rather than breakfast terms, exasperation may discourage going to the polls at all and randomness lead to the casting of perverse or at least meaningless votes. Some people may want to be able to choose between candidates of the same party, but many are interested only in voting for parties, and would not appreciate being forced into choosing between candidates of the same party about each of whom they know little".
The Lords amendments would force electors to vote for candidates of a party about whom they know little, or, on occasions, next to nothing.
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