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Equal Access (Public and Private Buildings)
Mr. Derek Wyatt accordingly presented a Bill to establish that where men and women are granted access to public or private buildings they are granted equal access; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 23 July, and to be printed [Bill 127].
Miss Julie Kirkbride (Bromsgrove):
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. As you will be aware, part of my constituency includes the Rover Longbridge plant. Today there was a very welcome announcement that the Government would be spending £150 million to help BMW to reinvest in the plant and to secure many jobs. Is not it appropriate that a statement of that importance, with further implications involving the outsourcing of car components which will have a major impact on employment in the west midlands, should be made in the House so that we could cross-examine the Minister,
Madam Speaker:
As far as I am aware, no Minister is seeking to make a statement on that issue. I do not know whether the hon. Lady was here, but a question was put to the Prime Minister on the matter at Question Time today.
Madam Speaker:
We now come to the main business. I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister, and I have had to limit the speeches of Back-Bench Members to 10 minutes.
4.9 pm
Sir George Young (North-West Hampshire): I beg to move,
- That this House, in the light of experience of recent elections held on the basis of proportional representation, believes that this is not an appropriate basis for election to the House of Commons; and urges the Government to resolve the uncertainty it has caused on this matter either by abandoning its commitment to hold a referendum, or by holding the referendum forthwith.
An hour ago, when asked about this issue by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant), the Prime Minister said that he would listen to the debate. I note with some surprise that the Prime Minister is not sitting on the Government Front Bench to listen to what I am sure will be an interesting debate.
My view is that it is right to debate this matter while our recollection of the campaigns and their immediate aftermath is relatively fresh. Also, by having a vote at the end of the debate, we can end the uncertainty that has been caused by the Government's commitment to hold a referendum on PR for Westminster and their refusal to set a firm date. Our motion allows either of two solutions. The one that we prefer is the abandonment of the commitment to hold a referendum, and a declaration that we will stay with the British first-past-the-post voting system for Westminster. That would be the quickest and simplest way to implement what I believe to be the majority view of the House.
However, the Labour party has a manifesto commitment to hold a referendum, which it gave before the last election. Labour felt that it might need the support of the Liberal Democrats after the election, but I suspect that it may regret having made that commitment. Respecting those sensitivities, and understanding that a referendum may be the only way to resolve the split in the Cabinet, we offer an alternative, which is to hold a referendum forthwith.
Jenkins recommended a two-vote, mixed electoral system with 80 to 85 per cent. of the House being elected by individual constituencies using the alternative vote system and the remainder being elected by city or countywide areas on a top-up basis from party lists.
The impact of the report was softened by the note of reservation of Lord Alexander, who considered that the use of AV was not
Secondly, I was struck by a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), who said:
Thirdly, the Government confirmed that the alternative to first past the post to be put in a referendum is the Jenkins proposals. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth), who wound up the debate on 5 November, said:
Fourthly, a number of hon. Members who spoke in that debate made the point, confirmed by Jenkins, that there is no public clamour for change. Only nine people attended the public meeting held in Northern Ireland, and only 30 were at the one in Cardiff. I am sure that Labour Members will confirm that focus groups are not focusing on this subject.
Finally, the Government were vague on the timing of the referendum. The Home Secretary said:
There was no opportunity to vote on 5 November, because the debate took place in Government time on a motion for the Adjournment of the House. We are offering the House that opportunity. Unlike the debate in November, today's debate takes place after three elections held under forms of PR, so we are better able to come to a judgment on how the systems work in practice.
Dr. Tony Wright (Cannock Chase):
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman remembers that in the recent Scottish Parliament elections his party won not a single constituency seat, yet it managed to end up with 18 representatives in the new Parliament. Does he think that that is shockingly unfair?
Sir George Young:
We do not approach the subject on the basis of what is right for the Tory party. We are interested in what is right for the House of Commons.
Mr. Jim Murphy (Eastwood)
rose--
Sir George Young:
I should like to make progress. We have already lost some of the time for the debate and there is a 10-minute limit on speeches.
We have the experience of the three recent elections. Previously, many people, including the Prime Minister, have said that they want to suspend judgment until they see how the systems work in practice. The Home Secretary said in our debate in November:
We have had the elections to the Welsh Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the European Parliament. The systems used have common features with the Jenkins proposals of lists, multi-member constituencies, proportionality and two classes of members, which can inform us. Apart from the Greater London elections next year, we have all the evidence that we shall ever have about the voting systems in operation.
"sound in principle, easy to understand and above all capable of commanding the enduring respect of the electorate."
The debate on that report took place on 5 November. It was an excellent debate, and I say that because I did not take part in it. Rereading Hansard, I was struck by a number of points. First, the balance of the contributions and the argument was against the Jenkins alternative by a ratio of more than two to one: it was 24:11. The Home Secretary made his position clear. He said:
"I therefore remain unpersuaded of the case for change",
although he went on to say, worryingly, that he was
"always open to higher argument"--
not a better argument, but a higher argument.
"Electoral systems are not just about elections; they are about the subsequent nature of representation."
Disaffection with the system, as expressed by a low turnout, is not just a problem on polling day: it is a problem for a Parliament. If people do not feel connected to an institution on polling day, they are unlikely to feel connected to it after polling day. The electoral system is a type of political glue between the voter and the institution he or she is voting for. We have a strong glue at the moment, and we should be cautious about using a weaker one.
"If we are to have change . . . we now have an alternative, whether we like it or not, alongside which the status quo of the first-past-the-post system can be judged and debated."
So we now know what the choice will be between.
"As to timing, we have always envisaged that the referendum would be before the next election, and that remains an option."--[Official Report, 5 November 1998; Vol. 318, c. 1033-1111.]
That is a weakening of an earlier commitment given in the debate on 2 June 1998, when the Home Secretary said:
"The plan is that the referendum should take place well before the next election."--[Official Report, 2 June 1998; Vol. 313, c. 190.]
More worryingly, the Home Secretary sought in the debate on 5 November to delay reform to the House of Commons electoral system until after the House of Lords reforms were in place. He said:
"It would not be wise to embark on reform to the House of Commons electoral system until we are more certain of the changes that will take place in the other place."
That is not on. We cannot let the shadow of proportional representation hang over this place until the Government have sorted out phase 2 of the House of Lords reform, which could take for ever.
"We shall want to see how the various changes bed down and how well the new electoral systems for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the European Parliament work."--[Official Report, 5 November 1998; Vol. 318, c. 1038.]
Quite so.
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