Written evidence from the Electoral Reform
Society
MUCH BETTER GOVERNANCE FOR WALES
1. Although the Electoral Reform Society
has an interest in all aspects of governance, its expertise is
in the field of elections and our comments are therefore confined
to Chapter 4 of the White Paper which is concerned with Electoral
Issues.
2. The Additional Member System is undoubtedly
a better system than First Past the Post and the use of AMS for
the elections to the National Assembly has given Wales an Assembly
which is much more representative, and more legitimate as a voice
for Wales, than would have been the case if the Assembly had been
elected by the First-Past-the-Post system.
3. Nevertheless, AMS is far from a perfect
electoral system. In our submission to the Richard Commission
(copy attached) we listed our concerns over the disadvantages
of AMS. Many of these concerns were noted by the Richard Commission
in its Report (chapter 12, section 18). We are disappointed that
the White Paper ignores the findings and recommendations of the
Richard Commission and instead focuses on a relatively minor issue—whether
constituency candidates should be able to be included in party
lists.
4. Should constituency candidates be allowed
to be included on party lists?
4.1 In our submission to the Richard Commission
we drew attention to the situation whereby AMS allows candidates
defeated in constituency contests to win seats as list members.
Although we expressed concern that the electorate might find "winning
losers" difficult to understand, we stated that this situation
is "quite justifiable in terms of the system" and at
no time have we suggested that AMS could be improved by requiring
candidates to contest constituency seats or list seats but not
both. Under AMS list Members are no less legitimate than constituency
Members, irrespective of whether they stood and were defeated
in constituency contests.
4.2 We support the Richard Commission's
view that:
"the proposal to prevent candidates from
standing in both ballots is based on the premise that a candidate
defeated in the constituency ballot has been rejected by the electorate—this
is not necessarily the case, particularly where candidates come
a close second; another view is that the winning candidate was
simply preferred."
The White Paper notes the Government's view
that the election of list Members who were defeated in constituency
contests:
— "devalues the integrity of the
electoral system in the eyes of the public": in our view,
if some who do not fully understand the system find it odd, a
programme of voter education would be a better remedy than tinkering
with the electoral rules; and
— "acts as a disincentive to vote
in constituency elections": we are not aware of any hard
evidence that supports this view.
4.3 Rather than preventing list candidates
from standing in constituencies, a case can be made for requiring
list members to stand in constituencies. A criticism of AMS is
that constituency candidates must face the electorate and be judged
on their merits by the electorate, but list members owe their
positions more to their party selectorates. It can be argued that
all candidates should be required to face the voters in constituency
campaigns, whether or not they are also on their party lists.
4.4 We do not, however, advocate requiring
all candidates to stand in constituencies any more than we support
the proposal of the White Paper. The problem arises from AMS's
creation of two categories of members and is best overcome by
changing the system—a point to which we will return below.
4.5 We are nevertheless deeply concerned
that the proposal of the White Paper is one that will do little
if anything to improve the electoral system, is one that will
have little impact on the Labour Party in Wales, but is one that
will be of great disadvantage to the opposition parties in Wales
which fight constituency seats but generally rely on list seats
for their representation. Some might surmise that, given the very
flimsy democratic reasons for the White Paper's proposals, the
real intention is to put obstacles in the way of the Government's
opponents. We would hope that any Government would be extremely
cautious in proposing changes which are likely to be to its electoral
advantage, but where the Government holds a majority on only 35%
of the vote (and only 42.7% of the vote in Wales) we would be
opposed to any change on which there was not a broad consensus.
5. Our main criticism of AMS is that it
creates two categories of representative (constituency and list
Assembly Members), a view shared by the Richard Commission which
highlighted this problem in its summarised findings on the electoral
system (chapter 12 of its Report). The Richard Commission, like
the Electoral Reform Society, felt the problem should be overcome
by a change to STV, a system under which all Assembly Members
would be elected with the same democratic mandate and the "problem"
of "winning losers" would not arise. (Although the Commission
felt the change would only be justified if there were to be a
change in the number of Assembly Members, we have argued that
the change should be made regardless of the number of seats in
the Assembly.)
6. The White Paper asserts that:
"The electoral system in the UK has historically
attached great importance to the relationship between Members
. . . and their constituents" (paragraph 1.28).
7. We believe in the importance of the relationship
between Members and their constituents. That is why we are unhappy
with an electoral system that leaves one third of Assembly Members
without any effective constituency link—a situation which
will not be changed by the proposals of the White Paper.
8. The further assertion that:
"It . . . causes considerable confusion
among the electorate that list members can set up constituency
offices and seek to deal with constituency casework as a `local
member' in competition with the constituency member" (para
1.29)
could result in some questioning whether the
authors of the White Paper fully understand the nature of the
present system. Members who are elected through party lists are
Members for all of the constituencies in their electoral regions
and there is no reason why they should not set up offices and
deal with casework that arises in any of their region's constituencies.
The Member elected in a constituency does not have a monopoly
of representation in that constituency and, should the Member
find him- or herself exposed to "competition", then
that might well be in the interests of the electorate. However,
we accept that there is legitimate concern over whether the competition
is in all respects fair given the different mandates of constituency
and list Members—which is a principal reason for us recommending
a change to STV which would put all Members on the same footing.
9. We do, however, welcome the proposals
(paragraph 4.8) to give the Assembly powers to promote participation
in Assembly elections. We do not believe that the lack of public
information is the only, or indeed the major, cause of low turnout,
but surveys indicate that it is nevertheless a contributory factor.
10. Finally, we are disappointed that the
White Paper dismisses the detailed analysis and argument of the
Richard Commission on electoral arrangements (16 pages in its
report) by simply saying "The Government does not believe
that this would be the right way forward".
12 October 2005
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