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Mr. Forth: I refer the Home Secretary to the point that he made in passing, alleging that there would be chaos if we, as a result of the parliamentary process, had to revert to the first-past-the-post system. I remind him that, exactly 20 years ago, all parties were faced in the first European elections with the task of selecting candidates for an election that was exactly the same length of time away. They were all able to do so--even to the extent that
my party had the extraordinary good sense to select me for a European constituency. The electorate showed even greater good sense by electing me.
Mr. Straw: I rest my case. If ever there was an argument against that system, that is it.
In the other place, there was some suggestion that the Jenkins report recommended an open-list system, and therefore--oddly, given the position that they have taken on the report--the Opposition prayed Jenkins in aid. However, Jenkins did not recommend an open-list system for the top-up Members, nor did it recommend the Belgian semi-open list. Instead, it recommended its own variation of the Belgian system.
The report's solution was, it must be said, somewhat complicated. Voters would be able to vote either for the list as a whole or for individual candidates on the list, as in the Belgian system. Although the list votes would help to determine which party or parties got the additional seats, only the votes cast for individual candidates on the list would determine which candidates were actually elected.
Mr. Barnes:
Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?
Mr. Straw:
No; I have already given way, and I want to get to the end of my speech.
No electoral system is perfect. All we can do is to attempt to match the most appropriate electoral system with the body that it is being used to elect. In the closed-list system, we believe that we have found the best match. It is no coincidence that it is the system that voters in Germany, France, Spain, Greece and Portugal use to elect their Members of the European Parliament. Of course, that is not a reason in itself for adopting the closed-list system, but it shows that we are not embarking on some astonishing constitutional innovation. Our proposal is not the great leap in the dark that has been portrayed.
Mr. Rhodri Morgan (Cardiff, West):
The Home Secretary has made a distinction between the way in which the closed list operates as between the parties and the electorate, and the way in which any list, closed or open, is used in terms of the internal party processes to select Conservative or Labour candidates. Will he explain one thing to me, in my ignorance?
Is there not one way in which the internal processes of, let us say, the Labour party intersect with the measure before us, in that the one advantage of an open-list system is that it prevents a party from slipping a Mickey Finn into the cocktail? Does it not thus prevent a party from putting a person who for some reason would not be popular with the electorate, high up the list, so that the voters can do nothing about it?
Mr. Straw:
I do not accept my hon. Friend's reasoning, but to pick up his metaphor, plenty of Mickey Finns have been elected from time to time on both sides of the House--people who are not especially acceptable to the electorate, but who have been put into safe seats, sometimes by their party machines. The electorate have closed their eyes, voted for those people as candidates on the closed list of a party, and they have been elected. I do
I ask Opposition Members to bear my final point particularly in mind. They claim that the closed-list system is anathema to the British constitution, has never been used before and breaches some fine democratic principle--a principle so important that it makes it acceptable for hereditary peers to override the will of the elected House of Commons.
What the Opposition, in their high-blown phraseology, forget is that they were the first party to use the closed-list system in the United Kingdom. That may come as a matter of some astonishment to them, but they voted for it; they introduced it. Of course, that was in Ireland, so perhaps they think that it does not count. However, Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Sayeed:
It had a particular problem.
Mr. Straw:
Oh, it had a particular problem, did it? So the system was okay for Ireland, was it? I think that I shall take that as an admission. Now we have an admission that the closed-list system was all right for Ireland because there was a particular problem, and it needed an election using what the Conservatives said was a fair system.
Indeed, the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), did not say that Ireland needed the closed-list system because it had a particular problem. Speaking of the identical system, including d'Hondt, to that which is now before the House, the right hon. Gentleman said:
Mr. Straw:
That is what the former Prime Minister said about the system, and that is what we believe about the same system for election to the European Parliament. I commend the amendment in lieu to the House.
Sir Norman Fowler:
The Home Secretary sat down very quickly then--and rightly so. What he said at the end of his speech was one of the cheaper points that he has made. The example that he used was drawn from an election for the deliberative forum on Northern Ireland, in the special circumstances of Northern Ireland.
The right hon. Gentleman quoted my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), the former Prime Minister. I should point out that, on the same occasion, my right hon. Friend, replying to a point made by the then Leader of the Opposition, said:
The right hon. Gentleman's case seems to be that choice is far too difficult for the public, so he will make the decision for us. It is not so much a matter of "trust the people" as of "trust the party". That goes totally against what most Members on both sides of the House believe. The Home Secretary was more at home when he was having a bash at the House of Lords than when he was defending his own proposals.
The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) was correct: there is one simple clear issue in the debate--the difference between a closed list, whereby the public vote for a party and not a candidate, and the open list, whereby the public can choose a named candidate to represent them. If that is the only choice that we have in the debate--and it is--I have no hesitation in opting for the open list.
I make it clear that the Opposition do not support proportional representation or the regional list. We prefer and would support the first-past-the-post system. That is what we have argued for and, judging by my own experience of the time when my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), who was then my local Member of the European Parliament, represented that area of the west midlands exceptionally well, it works in the European context.
The Government, with their overwhelming majority, have forced through their proposition none the less. The House of Lords has not challenged that basis for the election. As we are to have proportional representation and a regional list, the only issue at stake is how the public will elect their Members of the European Parliament.
The Government say that the party should choose Members of the European Parliament who will represent the public, and that the public's right to choose will be confined to voting for a party. They can vote Labour or Conservative or Liberal Democrat, and the party will provide the list of candidates in the order of ranking--
Mrs. Margaret Ewing (Moray):
Or SNP.
Sir Norman Fowler:
Yes; the public can vote for other parties too. I do not wish to offend anybody. The point is that the Government want the party to decide the list of candidates and the order of ranking.
The Home Secretary criticises the House of Lords and the role of the second Chamber, but he avoids the real criticism: the fundamental argument against his proposed system is that it is anti-democratic. It leaves the final decision in the hands of a party.
"I believe that this is a fair and balanced system that will produce a representative outcome".--[Official Report, 21 March 1996;Vol. 274, c. 498.]
Sir Norman Fowler
rose--
"I agree with his view that the electoral solution is not ideal".
He went on to say:
"I have to say that there is no precedent that I know for the circumstances and complexities that exist in Northern Ireland. If I had been able to find an easier compromise more familiar to people
10 Nov 1998 : Column 218across Northern Ireland, I assure the House that I would have found and advanced such a compromise."--[Official Report, 21 March 1996; Vol. 274, c. 500-02.]
The Home Secretary's example was a cheap debating point that does not match up to the seriousness of the issue before us. The right hon. Gentleman has had difficulty with the subject, and he has convinced neither the Opposition nor, in my judgment, his own side of the House. We certainly shall not accept the proposal for review, in spite of what was said by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), because it does nothing to answer the case against the closed list in principle.
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