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Mr. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman has failed to tell the Committee what will happen if the Bill is not amended as we propose. The alternative is that a mayor of 7 million people will be chosen by drawing lots. My view of the hon. Gentleman's concept of democracy will diminish very rapidly if he is honestly claiming that the mayor of London should be chosen by drawing lots rather than by the votes of 25 elected members of the assembly.
Mr. McNulty: The hon. Gentleman again shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the relationship between the two elements. The two elections will not happen on the same day by coincidence. They are elections for different things taking place in different contexts. In the unlikely event of a draw in the mayoral election, I would rather draw lots than allow an assembly that has no democratic mandate regarding the election of the executive to choose the winner. The hon. Gentleman can giggle in his little anorak way all that he likes, but that is the reality of the situation. If two mayoral candidates each secured 3.5 million votes, I would rather see the winner chosen by drawing lots. Twenty-five assembly members who were elected to perform entirely different roles should not choose the winner. That may or may not reflect the credentials of the two remaining candidates in the race.
Mr. Hughes: We have considered inaccurate parallels with American elections. After the votes in US presidential elections have been added up, a second group--an electoral college--decides who should be President. I repeat that I cannot believe--I cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman believes--that Londoners would rather have a lottery and have a chance choice made between two people who got the same number of votes than that 25 other people to whom they have given a vote of confidence should choose who they thought was the appropriate person.
Mr. McNulty: That demonstrates that any claim--one was made soon after the general election--that the proposals simply copy a failed American model is wrong. Such a claim was made last night by a colleague who was sitting behind me but who is not here tonight.
The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey is wrong in one regard--the electoral college is the first, not the second stage in US presidential
elections. That system does not work on the basis that if a popular, first-past-the-post vote is tied, the decision goes to an electoral college. In presidential elections, people vote for members of the electoral college. If that vote is tied, the decision goes--completely wrongly, in my opinion--to the legislature, rather than the executive. That fundamentally blurs, by accretion, democratic mandates.
We are discussing different parts of government in London. Flipping a coin is far preferable to another body, which has nothing to do with the executive in the democratic process, making that decision.
Mr. John Randall (Uxbridge):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. McNulty:
I give way to the man with the retail store in Uxbridge.
Mr. Randall:
The hon. Gentleman can repeat that any time he likes. Would he prefer the drawing of lots or the tossing of a coin? In other words, is he a drawer of lots or a tosser?
Mr. McNulty:
That remark was well worth my allowing the hon. Gentleman to intervene and far preferable to all the interventions that I have just accepted from the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey, who I would say, if I had to put money on it, does not draw lots.
The Bill has got the balance right in its proposals for electing the mayor. I have heard nothing of substance from the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk or the putative new leader of the Liberal Democrats that changes my mind. We should resist, as trivia borne by anoraks, all the amendments.
Mr. Wilkinson:
I hope that I will be taken seriously in this debate if I confess that I am not a political anorak or an electoral system wonk and that, come election time, unlike Liberal Democrat Members, I do not wear sandals.
The further the Liberal Democrats get from power, the more keen they become on what the electorate would regard as jiggery-pokery with the figures and what in French or Euro-speak might be termed "repechage"--a blatant attempt to manipulate the electorate's clear decision.
The great merit of the amendments in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) is that the first-past-the-post system is readily comprehended. All the mayor needs to know is that he or she is chosen by the majority of Londoners. That is the key question. It is not a matter of second preferences. The mayor needs to be the person who receives the most wholehearted support from those who want him or her to be their mayor.
People often vote for second preferences without wishing them to be elected. I am sure that the Minister will advise the Committee whether, as I presume, it will be valid for voters only to make one choice. Many Londoners may do so. Will he advise the Committee also why the second preference votes for the candidates who are eliminated because they do not come first or second--or third, if there is a tie--should count more than the second preference votes cast for the candidates who come first or second? I do not comprehend the distinction that is being drawn.
The other point that we must clearly understand is that the electorate must have confidence in the system and must understand it. The best argument for the simple system that my colleagues propose was made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow). At the end of his speech, no one was any the wiser as to the merits of the amendment that he was supposed to be putting forward. The second-best argument came from the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), who, after 20 minutes, had not convinced the Committee of the inherent merits of the Bill's proposals. He has, rightly, fled. I doubt that anyone was convinced by his arguments.
I do not want to anticipate the debate that we might have on schedule 2, but if members of the electorate for London seeking guidance on the system for electing the mayor turned to that schedule, they would find it extremely complicated, whereas they comprehend fully that the candidate who wins the most votes most deserves to be elected.
Mr. Burstow:
The hon. Gentleman is making the point that the system is simple because people can understand that the candidate who gets the most votes should be the winner. However, does he accept that in many cases, particularly a mayoral election in which there might be three, four or five candidates, it is highly likely that, under first past the post, no candidate will win the support, in his words, of the majority of Londoners?
Mr. Wilkinson:
It would be clear that more Londoners supported one candidate than any other. That is what matters. The gradations of second or third best are of no consequence because regardless of how people cast their second vote--and third vote, if they have one--their hearts will still be with their No. 1 choice. In our highly party political system, that first choice will, unless he is an independent candidate of exceptional merit, carry the same ideological convictions as the voter and be someone whom the voter regards as best suited to implementing the party political programme of the mayoralty, which will have been put to the electorate.
It is not valid to suggest that we shall get better governance, which will have more support from Londoners in general, from a system that could rely on second preferences. That will call into question the validity of the election system as a whole and diminish the electorate's interest in voting because they will find the system complicated and unconvincing. We need the maximum turnout for a system that everybody understands, that is traditional and that achieves the objective--the return of the person who has more support from Londoners than any other candidate.
Mr. Martin Linton (Battersea):
I shall not detain the Committee for long. I apologise for not being present for the opening speech by the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), although I did, by electronic means, hear her describe the first-past-the-post system and refer to my description of the supplementary vote system as a superior majoritarian system. I shall briefly try to convince the Committee that the SV system is indeed superior to first past the post, which her party advocates, and, in those circumstances, to the alternative vote system that is supported by the smaller opposition party. Certainly first past the post would be greatly inferior in the current circumstances. My hon. Friend the
As I am sure that everyone who has spoken in the debate knows, the main failing of the first-past-the-post system is that it can result in the election of people on very low percentages of the vote. The hon. Member for the quaintly named constituency of Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Moore) was elected by 31 per cent. of the voters, and Sir Russell Johnston the former hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber--another quaintly named constituency--was elected by only 26 per cent. under the present system, while his rivals received 25, 24 and 22 per cent. In other words, Members have been elected on less than a third of the vote in this Parliament and on only just over a quarter of the vote in recent elections.
Let us consider the lack of legitimacy that the system would give to a London mayor. We must also take on board the fact that, in a mayoral election, independents have a stronger chance and more people will be voting other than on political grounds. I should not advocate it, but experience in the United States suggests that name recognition will count for a great deal, independents can make a stronger showing, and business experience and other factors may be considered relevant in a way that they might not be in a legislative or council election.
There may be 10, 20 or 30 candidates, and five or 10 plausible candidates might get a share of the vote. I want to draw the Committee's attention to what happens under the first-past-the-post system in countries that have a plethora of candidates. The only country that has adopted first past the post--this supposedly superior system--since just after the second world war is Papua New Guinea. It started with the alternative vote but switched to the first-past-the-post system in the 1960s. I assure you that this is highly relevant, Mr. Martin.
Under the alternative vote system, candidates in Papua New Guinea had to appeal to voters along the lines of their splintered, tribal, village politics. The candidates had to find support across the country in order to get the 20 or 30 per cent. of the first choices that they had to have if they were to stand any chance of winning. When the country switched to first past the post, it reverted to the narrow politics that revolves around small villages. A candidate in Papua New Guinea is returned to Parliament on 6.5 per cent. of the vote, while the 15 or 20 other candidates get less.
I accept that there is not much correlation between an election in Papua New Guinea and a mayoral election in London except for the possibility that we may have a plethora of candidates, all plausible and all with some support, and we may well be pushed into having a mayor elected on 6.5 per cent. of the vote. It is clear that, in a mayoral election in which there may be many independent candidates, there is an overwhelming need for an electoral system that guides people to make a realistic choice between a small number of candidates rather than opening the way for an election that descends into farce.
There is nothing wrong with picking an electoral system that forces people to choose. At the end of the day, any choice of an executive boils down to a choice
between two alternatives, and one is trying to get voters to think realistically about the alternatives. The supplementary vote, devised partly by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), is exactly such a system. It forces people to think before the election who would make a good mayor and who it is worth spending one's vote on. A voter has only two votes and cannot choose any number of options. The process of narrowing the choice and the realistic alternatives is vital to the success of the mayoral elections.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East was quite wrong to say that the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) was going to run for one dead-end job. In fact, he is having to choose between two possible dead-end jobs. One would be the Liberal Democrat candidate for the mayor of London and the other the leader of his party. Clearly, we need a system that will narrow the choice and thus force people in London to choose between realistic alternatives, without denying them the second choice that can avoid the difficulties of tactical voting.
6.30 pm
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