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Mr. Hood: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the voting record on the Scottish Executive is not the same as the voting record of Labour party branches and constituencies. In fact, if a vote were held among Scottish constituencies, as many as 90 per cent. would support first past the post, although that is not the case on the Scottish Executive.

Pete Wishart: Well, there we have it. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that insight into the Labour party's position. We have seen exposed not so much the divisions between London Labour and Lanarkshire Labour, but the divisions between Labour Members in Westminster. Apparently, there are also divisions between branches and constituencies and the Labour party nationally on this policy. I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing out the differences between parts of Scottish new Labour, because it is very revealing.

It would be unfortunate to pre-empt and prejudge the outcome of the Secretary of State's commission. We support the commission because we believe that it is a good idea. There is a job for it to do and we shall be judicious workers on it. We have provided our nominee well ahead of the time scale set by the Secretary of State—the Conservatives, unfortunately, could not do that. We at least are fully signed up members of the commission and we want to make it work.

7.30 pm

It is fair and right that the case for STV is made at this stage, if only so that, after studying our debate today, the commission does not conclude that the only solution the Committee could come up with was the half-baked proposal made by the hon. Member for Cunninghame, South. As I said earlier, STV is an elegant and sensible solution, given the overwhelming conversion, which I have enjoyed watching, of Scottish new Labour to PR for local government.

Anne Picking: There are some things that I cannot marry up. The leader of the hon. Gentleman's party has said that it would be wrong to impose an electoral system on a Parliament in a democracy, so why on earth would it be justified for us to impose—with the support of his party and mine in the Scottish Parliament—a PR electoral system for local government when people do not want it?

Pete Wishart: What is behind that sentiment is very revealing and shows where the hon. Lady and her colleagues are coming from—they do not like this matter being devolved to the Scottish Parliament. They would prefer that decision to be in their hands and that is the real intention behind her question.

I listened carefully to the concerns expressed about list Members and about Members elected from the additional Members list. Labour Members have a point
 
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about list Members; they have not covered themselves in glory and there are issues in respect of their role. There is real disappointment that the list system has not worked, although as I reminded Labour Members earlier, the House itself decided on that system—perhaps that is a reason for giving the decision to the Scottish Parliament.

Labour Members also have a point when they refer—as several of them did—to the fact that 70,000 Labour voters in Glasgow could not elect one Member in the list. That is a legitimate point, but I wish that Labour Members would show some democratic consistency in applying that principle. What about the 40,000 SNP voters in Glasgow who secured 4 per cent. of SNP councillors in the city? That is equally wrong. It takes about 12,523 SNP voters to elect one councillor in Glasgow, yet it takes only 1,230 Labour voters to do so.

I accept that there are problems about all those wasted votes and that Labour Members have principled objections to that and to Labour votes being wasted, but they must concede that a first-past-the-post system for local authority elections will also give rise to problems of democratic deficit.

Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, especially to a Welsh MP, but is he not missing the point? The worst thing about the current list system is that a candidate can lose in the constituency but still come in by the back door under the list system.

Pete Wishart: The reason for that is because they do so overwhelmingly well under first past the post—that is why they are not selected. That is a key and legitimate point.

Mr. Michael Weir (Angus) (SNP): My hon. Friend might like to point out to Labour Members that Peter Peacock came third in Moray, yet he is a Minister in the Executive for their party.

Pete Wishart: That is a very good point. We do not expect that kind of consistency from Labour Members; they seem to be concerned only with securing a first-past-the-post system.

Only STV will ensure that every vote counts. It will ensure that tactical voting will not take place on the scale that we experienced during the last Scottish parliamentary elections. If we had STV, there would be no second-vote Green; the Greens and the Trots would have to compete for the first votes like the rest of us. Surely, that makes sense.

Given that we could solve all the issues on voting systems for domestic Scottish elections, the only real opposition to STV would be if Labour Members were opposed to proportional representation per se. That is closer to the facts, because we have heard from their contributions that they do not want PR for the Scottish Parliament.

The commission has a big job to do; it will have its work cut out if it is effectively to square all the concerns that we have heard today. However, it must not be used as a fig leaf to cover the real differences that exist in
 
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Scottish new Labour. It must not be used to try to heal the wounds that have developed between Lanarkshire Labour and London Labour.

Mr. Davidson: Although many views are being expressed from the Labour Benches, the hon. Gentleman makes a mistake if he characterises everyone on them as new Labour.

Pete Wishart: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; he sums up the differences in the Scottish Labour party. Indeed, the differences that have emerged during this debate are truly overwhelming. I do not know where he fits into the spectrum, but he certainly has much to choose from.

The fault lines between the two groups are clear. If there was a free vote on PR for local government, I think one Labour Member would be in favour—

Chris Bryant: Two.

Pete Wishart: There would be support from their Welsh colleague, but the rest would reject it overwhelmingly.

Whisky strip stamps are another issue—[Interruption.] Labour Members are asking about Divisions, so I would give them one on whisky strip stamps. That is an interesting and indicative—[Interruption.]

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. May we have fewer interventions from a sedentary position? I can hardly hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying. May I also ask him to address his remarks to the amendments before us?

Pete Wishart: I am grateful to you for your guidance, Sir Michael.

My point was that if Labour Members had their way up the road they would oppose whisky strip stamps, but in this place not one of them was prepared to support the whisky industry in its hour of need. That was disgraceful.

We shall support the Bill. We believe that it is right and that we must have 129 Members for the Scottish Parliament. The amendments are not the solution to the problems that we heard about at such length on Second Reading and again today, and if they go to a vote, I urge the Committee to throw them out. We should support the Bill, but throw out the amendments.

Mr. Davidson: I want to consider whether the proposals can be improved. They start from the assumption that the system in the Scottish Parliament is the best of all possible worlds and that the current construction—with 129—is not capable of change or enhancement. There are two main reasons why that is not the case.

First, the existing system is unfair. The situation in Orkney offers an example. The Member for Orkney, who is the Deputy First Minister, was elected with—I believe—3,659 votes. With that figure, he would have won second place in no constituency and would have
 
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come only third or fourth in many others. In fact, with 3,659 votes in Strathkelvin and Bearsden, where there were five candidates, he would have come sixth. The absurdity that someone can be elected in one constituency with a vote that would not even have enabled them to come last in another needs to be addressed, so it is reasonable to consider a system that would give us more equally sized constituencies—[Interruption.] I hear a Welsh comrade, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), say that that is the consequence of first past the post, but it is not simply that. The system is being used in constituencies of grossly unequal size and we must address that.

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