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David Cairns (Greenock and Inverclyde) (Lab): A tragedy.

Mr. Duncan: Perhaps the Scottish Conservatives winning the first by-election of that Parliament made that tragedy somewhat more legitimate.

There is considerable resentment among Labour Back Benchers about the role of regional and list MSPs. They were sceptical during the passage of the 1998 Act and I suppose that nothing that has happened in the past five or six years has convinced them that it is other than a bad system, badly implemented, and they feel compromised by it. As I said in an intervention, this issue says more about the power struggle within the Scottish Labour party than about how we govern Scotland. The hon. Member for Cunninghame, South suggests a reduction in the number of list MSPs, but that will not eliminate the problems caused by arbitrating in disputes between list MSPs and constituency MSPs; simply having 11, rather than 56, does not eliminate the problem.

The hon. Gentleman proposes that the number of Scottish Parliament regions should be reduced from eight to two. That has a simplistic attraction in that it is
 
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simple to administer, but it would reduce the commonality of interest across those regions. He has not been specific about how the two regions would be created but, for argument's sake, Glasgow in the west of Scotland could be one region, and Edinburgh in the east could be the other. If so, I look forward to hearing whether Edinburgh or Glasgow should get the additional Member and the repercussions in the press that will result from that argument.

Alternatively, the division could consist of one region comprising the urban central belt and the south of Scotland and another comprising everything north of Stirling. In such a case, regional and local interests could be marginalised. For example, no one from the south of Scotland might be elected, with all the Members coming from the urban central belt.

Mr. Davidson: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, although many of his arguments against having two top-up constituencies are valid, the rules of the House—given the Bill that was introduced—meant that it was not in order to table an amendment proposing only a single list for the top-up? Indeed, the Bill made it impossible for hon. Members to suggest that there should be no top-up Members whatsoever. The amendments are making by far the best of an extremely bad job.

Mr. Duncan: The hon. Gentleman is right. As I said during my comments on the first group of amendments, this Bill is a clever drafting job. A lot of effort went into its drafting to preclude debate any wider than the Government wanted. It is perhaps unfortunate that we have not been able to discuss some of the issues that he and I want to discuss, even if the Government do not.

The amendments are designed to engage voters with a system that might be more local to their needs and that provides the opportunity of overlaying a first-past-the-post election system. However, it misses the main point by cementing into the Bill the fact that there will be 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament. That is not what the Scotland Act 1998, or the deal that was done with the Scottish public, is all about. The reality is that the Government have gone back on their commitment and I regret that nothing in the amendments gets us close enough to addressing that fundamental problem. The Scottish public believe that there are simply too many politicians and that fact outweighs some of the superficial advantages of the amendments. On that basis, unfortunately, I cannot support them.

Mrs. Liddell: I have a great deal of sympathy with the sentiments behind the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Donohoe) because I know that they are driven by his desire for coterminous constituencies. Coterminous constituencies are vital to the way in which we go about our business. The electoral system should be devised not for our comfort and convenience, but for that of our electors.

A fundamental change took place in May last year in the discussions on the coalition agreement, in that it was decided that there should be proportional representation for local government. I shall not go into the ins and outs of whether I find that attractive, but it does mean that four different systems of election will be available to our electors.
 
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6.45 pm

On polling day last year, a friend—he was not a lawyer but a consultant physician—phoned me as he was about to vote. He asked, "How do I vote Labour twice?" I said, "There isn't an awful lot of point in voting Labour twice because this system is so skewed that it doesn't work properly." The problem that we face is the fundamental flaw in the electoral system that was chosen for the Scottish Parliament. I do not believe for a minute that the Scottish Constitutional Convention envisaged the system operating as it is currently being operated. It did not see it as a life-support system for rejects and retreads who could not get elected first past the post. That is not what proportional representation is supposed to be about.

Although I said that I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, South and other supporters of the amendment, I regret that I cannot support them in the Lobby tonight. They have failed to take into account the important announcement by the Secretary of State about the establishment of a commission. Given the four different systems of election available in Scotland, even a commission that consisted 100 per cent. of Edinburgh lawyers—God forbid—would conclude that change to the nature of the electoral system for the Scottish Parliament has to come about. It goes against reason that we should not try to achieve some rationality in the system of election.

I am disappointed in the Scottish Conservatives for not seeking to be part of that commission. They appear to want to have their cake and eat it. They say that they want first past the post, yet they—along with parties even more minor than them—are among the biggest beneficiaries of the present system. They are not prepared to consider a more rational view of electoral systems in Scotland because it does not fulfil their own self-interest.

Mr. Roy: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Tories' refusal to join the commission is the politics of the petted lip? It is a question of, "It's my ball, and nobody else is playing if you don't agree with the rules."

Mrs. Liddell: My hon. Friend can always think of a good Lanarkshire expression. Certainly, if I were running a ménage, I would not invite the Scottish Conservatives to join it.

Mr. Peter Duncan: I may be one of the few hon. Members on this side of the House who knows what the right hon. Lady is talking about. I accept her point about not wanting to miss the bus, but this commission is being set up to solve the problem of non-coterminous boundaries. Until the Bill becomes an Act, we do not have a problem with non-coterminous boundaries. As and when the Bill becomes legislation, we will talk about the commission.

Mrs. Liddell: One of the key issues that emerged from the vast majority of replies to the consultation on the size of the Scottish Parliament was the broad consensus on the figure of 129. That consensus sprang in some instances from self-interest, but in others from the fact that we have achieved a constitutional change in Scotland, reversed a system that existed for 300 years
 
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and introduced a new one, the most remarkable aspect of which is its stability. Well may the only Scottish Tory in this House mock that: the Scottish Conservatives were root and branch against devolution because they saw, during 18 years of Tory rule, the extent to which their lot in Scotland could be imposed on the rest of us, who did not want it.

Mr. Duncan: The right hon. Lady talks about introducing stability, but the problems that the Government face stem from the fact that they are already changing the system. Their own Labour Members were with them, so there was a "consensus", as they like to call it, on their side. Now, however, they are moving the goalposts and that is what is causing the problem.

Mrs. Liddell: The consensus was expressed by the people of Scotland through Civic Scotland and our own political parties—I remind my right hon. and hon. Friends that what we are talking about tonight is Labour party policy—and there was clear evidence of support for having 129 MSPs. Some of my hon. Friends who oppose that may now regret not taking the consultation process more seriously. I repeat that it is significant that we are here tonight debating something that, despite its difficulties, is a comparatively minor part of the overall constitutional settlement. Since 1999, a stable Parliament has been in place.

Constitutional change has been brought about in a stable way, but there is an inherent anomaly at the root of our electoral systems in Scotland. The problem is that we have taken all the different electoral systems in isolation, failing to take into account their impact on our electors. We now have an opportunity through the proposals before us tonight—particularly the proposals recommended by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to establish a commission—to let common sense reign. Let us sort out the mess that is proportional representation and get a system that is fair, transparent and comprehensible.

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