MONDAY 19 DECEMBER 2011
Members Present
Lord Richard (Chair)
Baroness Andrews
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield
Bishop of Leicester
Lord Norton of Louth
Lord Rooker
Baroness Scott of Needham Market
Baroness Shephard of Northwold
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
Lord Trefgarne
Lord Trimble
Lord Tyler
Baroness Young of Hornsey
Gavin Barwell MP
Mr Tom Clarke MP
Ann Coffey MP
Oliver Heald MP
Dr Daniel Poulter MP
Laura Sandys MP
Dr Alan Renwick and Professor Iain McLean (QQ
541-568)
Examination of Witnesses
Dr Alan Renwick, Reader
in Comparative Politics, University of Reading, and Professor
Iain McLean, Professor of Politics, Nuffield College, University
of Oxford
Q541 The Chairman:
Good afternoon, gentlemen, and thank you very much for coming.
It is nice to see you again. You know what we are about. Would
you like to make some kind of opening statement or would you like
to go straight into questions?
Professor McLean:
I will make a very brief statement, Lord Chairman. First, I apologise
for my appearance, but I have to go straight from this to a carol
concert for the homeless in Oxford—it is their Christmas
dinner. Secondly, I understand that the purpose of this session
is only to discuss electoral systems, but I have, as Members will
know, given more wide-ranging written evidence, in conjunction
with Simon Hix, and I have published an entire book on the subject.
I understand that the purpose is not to go into other matters
this afternoon and I will try to resist the temptation. The only
other thing that I have to say is that I was also involved with
the Political Studies Association pamphlet, which, as you know,
was authored by Alan. I was on the commissioning body for the
pamphlet, so we think that we are in a very similar place.
Dr Renwick:
If you want me to offer some thoughts on the issues that I think
the Committee should be talking about, I am happy to do so, but
if you would prefer to go straight into questions—
The Chairman:
By all means have two or three minutes to start off with.
Dr Renwick:
Okay. I thought that it might be helpful to flag four issues that
I think are at stake when we are thinking about the choice between
the single transferable vote system and the open list system,
which are, of course, the two systems that are mentioned in the
draft Bill. There are four points that I think are particularly
important. One is the degree to which voters can express a choice
or preference among candidates. The second is the degree to which
those preferences actually make a difference to who gets elected
from within political parties. The third is the likelihood of
electing people who are entirely independent of political parties.
The fourth is diversity within the Chamber. With regard to the
first of those—the degree of voter choice—there is
the question of whether you allow a party vote to be expressed
at all, which is possible in different forms under both the list
system and STV. There is also the question, particularly under
list systems, of just how much choice you allow voters to express.
The option given in the draft Bill is the simplest form, in which
voters can express one preference for one candidate, but many
other options are available that the Committee might be interested
in. The second question is the degree to which these preferences
can determine who gets elected from within political parties.
Thinking particularly about list systems, there may be an option
for voters simply to express a list vote without preferences within
that list, so that the preferences within the list entirely determine
who gets elected, but more commonly you would have some kind of
process of combining the parties' ordering and the voters' ordering.
There are many ways of doing that which it would be important
to investigate. Thirdly, with regard to the electability of independents,
the evidence is pretty clear that that is more likely under STV
than under an open list system—I can certainly talk about
that. With regard to diversity within the Chamber, the evidence
is increasingly that, in a country where voters are not opposed
to the election of women, it does not make terribly much difference
which form of proportional system you use, except that, if you
want to have quotas, those are more likely to work with a closed
list system than with any of the alternatives. That is with regard
to women; we do not have terribly much evidence on other minorities
and ethnic minorities in particular.
Q542
The Chairman:
Thank you very much. Let me start with the question that you identified,
I think, as the one that we are really interested in here. The
White Paper favours STV but then says that a case can be made
for an open list system. When we had the first run around the
course on this, I think that we were veering towards an open list
system rather than STV. I am bound to say that, having looked
a bit more at some of the documents, I am starting to veer back
in the opposite direction. Can you encapsulate the different arguments
in favour of the one rather than the other?
Professor McLean:
I do not want to take sides, because they have different properties
and I do not think that it is for me to say which properties are
more important. Because, as you all know, STV is more candidate-centred
and open list is relatively more party-centred, STV is the system
that probably gives more choice to the individual voter, albeit
that the voter can make a choice within open list—how effective
that would be would depend on the detail that Alan has just referred
to of which variety of open list it was. If it were a matter of
concern to ensure that candidates entirely independent of party
were elected, then STV would probably be more appropriate. I sense
from reading the transcripts of previous sessions that there is
some confusion between different concepts of independence—independent
of party as against independence within party. My view is that
the second concept of independence—people who take a party
Whip but are perhaps not as beholden to that Whip as they might
be if they were in the House of Commons—is secured by the
non-renewable fixed term and that the electoral system is irrelevant
to that point.
Dr Renwick:
Yes, I agree with all that. The only clear difference between
the two systems is that you are more likely to get independents—people
who are independent entirely of party—under STV. If we look
at the evidence from around the world, there are very few independents
elected anywhere using any list system, whereas rather more are
elected using STV, particularly in Ireland. There is a logic underlying
that. If you are a very popular independent, under a list system
you might win enough votes to secure three or four seats, but
you can only fill one of them, so your voters are disadvantaged
and you have an incentive either to gather extra people on to
your ticket, in which case you cease to be independent, or to
give some of your votes to parties. Under an STV system, however,
you can be a very popular independent, but your votes can then
transfer if you have more than you need in order to be elected.
With regard to any other matter, it depends on how you devise
the open list system. Under a simple open list system, where voters
can express one preference, there is less choice for voters than
under STV.
Q543
The Chairman:
Pause there for a minute. I think that it would be helpful to
the Committee if you could briefly run through the different types
of open list system, giving us the pros and the cons.
Dr Renwick:
Okay—
The Chairman:
But quickly.
Dr Renwick:
With regard to the preference that voters can express, you can
have simple systems in which voters can simply express a preference
for one candidate from within the party list; you can allow them
to express multiple preferences, with multiple Xs, giving an X
to several different candidates; you can allow them to rank in
order the candidates from within the list; or you can even devise
a system where they can express preferences going across party
lists, so that either some part of their vote goes to a different
party or you have other immensely complicated ways, as in Switzerland,
of working out exactly how that vote is allocated. Those are the
options with regard to the preferences that voters can express.
There is also the issue of whether voters must express a preference
within the list or whether they have the option of expressing
a simple list vote without changing the order at all.
The Chairman:
A sort of above-the-line vote.
Dr Renwick:
Yes, exactly so. If, for example, you allow for an above-the-line
vote and you say that above-the-line votes count for the order
of candidates preferred by the party, the party has considerable
control over which people get elected if many voters use that
option.
If, by contrast, you do not give those votes much
weight or you do not allow those votes, the preferences of the
voters determine the order in which candidates get elected.
The Chairman:
I think that I understand.
Q544
Baroness Scott of Needham
Market: Can I just ask
you to rerun what you said with regard to size of constituency?
It seems that, if we are talking about using existing regions,
there may be differences in the way that one would approach the
electoral system if you are looking at pretty large constituencies.
Professor McLean:
If it was a question of simply using the standard regions—that
is, European Parliament constituencies—as the constituencies
for this House, as suggested in the White Paper, which then rather
backs away from it, academic specialists are clear that that would
not work with STV. That could work with open list, but I would
prefer the decision to go in the opposite direction: decide which
electoral system you want and then decide the optimum size of
each constituency. For STV, it should probably not be bigger than
a seven-Member seat max. Of course, that interacts with other
decisions that Parliament will have to take on whether it is 300
Members or larger and whether it is 80 per cent elected or 100
per cent elected. Within the suggestions that have been made,
it seems to me that the outer limits for each standard election
would be that the smallest number of places to be filled would
be 80, if you go exactly with the scheme in the White Paper; the
largest number would be 150 at each filling, in the event that
there was a feeling that the size should be 450 and that it should
be all elected. Either of these is perfectly manageable under
either open list or STV. Open list is an easier system to run
with particularly large districts. That is my first take on the
question.
Q545
Baroness Young of Hornsey:
I have three relatively quick, relatively practical questions.
First, do you think that it would be necessary to explain to the
public, who are not used to voting in this way, how the system
works in terms of the preference and the ability to vote across
parties, and to what extent would there need to be some sort of
education programme on that? Do you think that the extra cost
of STV is significant enough to deter making that the system of
choice? As I understand it, if you want to overcome the issue
of alphabetical bias, you need to introduce a system to ensure
that that does not happen. Finally, do you think that the additional
time taken to perform the count with STV is a significant deterrent
to making it the system of choice?
Dr Renwick:
I think that it would be necessary to have an education programme
with either STV or an open list system; for example, if a voter
simply gives one preference for one candidate, what that means
and what effect that has is very different depending on whether
you have STV or an open list system. It would be important for
voters to understand that. With regard to the cost of STV, is
your question about the extra cost relative to open list PR?
Baroness Young of Hornsey:
Yes.
Dr Renwick:
With regard to the issue of the alphabetical bias, I do not think
that there is a significant cost there. The ideal way of tackling
the alphabetical bias is to have what is sometimes called Robson
rotation, where you have different versions of the ballot paper
printed with the candidates in different orders. They do this
in the Australian Capital Territory, and the Electoral Commissioner
assures me that it does not cause them any trouble and it does
not create any significant cost that causes any concern there.
The greater issue of potential cost with STV relates to the counting
process—we get into horrible details here—and how
you transfer the votes of candidates who have already been elected.
There are several different ways of doing this. The best way from
the point of view of ensuring that the result reflects what voters
intended is called the inclusive Gregory method, which involves
transferring fractions of fractions of votes, and it gets very,
very messy. Scotland uses this for local government elections
and concluded that using vote-counting machines was the only sensible
way of doing it. It is possible to run it by hand, but it certainly
takes time. There would be a strong case for using vote-counting
machines in that scenario and that would of course entail an extra
cost.
Professor McLean:
Perhaps I may come in with a supplementary point to that. There
is software out there—it would of course have to be tested
and approved by Parliament—and although the task that Alan
has just described, the inclusive Gregory transfer, is indeed
very messy for human beings, it is trivially easy for computers.
The Chairman:
I can see that Lord Trimble wishes to speak on this one.
Q546
Lord Trimble:
I just cannot let this go on. What you call the inclusive Gregory
method is the only proper way of doing it. It is the way in which
it has always been done in Northern Ireland, since 1973. To say
that it is messy is simply wrong. It is very simple indeed. Votes
will transfer at different values depending on the circumstances
and the stage of the count, and all you have to do, very simply,
is to have each bundle of votes properly labelled. There is no
problem. You are making a mountain out of this. I am sorry to
interrupt your evidence, but what you are saying goes completely
against 40 years' experience.
Dr Renwick:
I agree absolutely that there is a very straightforward mathematical
procedure that you follow and there is no uncertainty about what
you should do. It just takes some time to go through it. The question
is whether it makes sense to have these long counts that take
several days to do, or whether it is cheaper in the long run to
have some equipment that, as Iain says, can do it very quickly.
Lord Trimble:
The problem you will have with a counting machine is a lack of
confidence in the machine, particularly if it tries to do several
stages of the count rapidly. That would mean that the candidates
and the parties would have great difficulty in verifying what
was going on at that stage. You have to bear in mind that, if
people ask for a recount, you can only get a recount of the latest
stage—you cannot have a whole recount. Therefore, you have
to go slowly so that the candidates and the parties can be sure
that an accurate result has been taken. If you try to rush that,
you will have a very serious problem in terms of popular confidence
in the outcome.
Q547 Oliver Heald:
There is a sort of voter who is looking just to go into the booth,
do something relatively simple and then come away; then there
are sophisticated people who no doubt wish to have all sorts of
different considerations reflected in their votes. It is possible
with both STV and open list to have an above-the-line vote, where
you just go for the party. Which of the two systems better fits
in with that?
Dr Renwick:
The list system is designed to be based on political parties in
a way that STV is not. However, if you wanted to introduce a party
element to STV, I do not see any reason for not doing so. The
only difference that needs to be considered is that, with a list
system, when it comes to the counting of the votes, you can, if
you wish, give more emphasis in deciding the final order of the
candidates on the list. You can give more emphasis to those voters
who have chosen to express a preference than to those who have
not; you can try to weight things against the parties' preferences
dominating that. However, under an STV system you cannot really
do that, because there is not a separate party vote in the same
sense.
Oliver Heald:
Of course, in Australia they eventually decided that they needed
an above-the-line vote and they do that with STV now.
Professor McLean:
Here is one area where the Australian experience is not very helpful
for us. Australia not only introduced an above-the-line option
but imposed what academics regard as ridiculously stringent rules
for those who do not choose to vote above the line. Basically,
unless you put every single number from one to 45, if there are
45 names on the list, once and once only, your vote is counted
as what the Australians call "informal", which is a
term of art that I was amused to see that your Australian guests
used and understandably mystified Members of this Committee. "Informal"
is Australian for "invalid", and in the view of most
academic commentators that is a ridiculous system and that ridiculous
stringency may have led to the extremely high proportion of Australian
voters who vote above the line in Australian Senate elections.
Once above-the-line voting goes into the 90 per cent to 95 per
cent range, which it is in Australian Senate elections, then it
no longer makes sense to say that the system is STV, but Members
should bear in mind that there is an Australian peculiarity here
that would not be replicated in the UK.
Oliver Heald:
I think that it is the case that a lot of the votes are informal
in Australia—is that correct? The percentage of above-the-line
votes is so high relative to the votes that are accepted because
there are a lot of informal votes that are just thrown away.
Professor McLean:
My sense is that the number is not that high, but it would be
easier for us to supply you a note on that.
Dr Renwick:
It is a bit higher than it is in the UK, but that is also partly
because there is compulsory voting in Australia, so it is not
really comparable.
Q548 Laura Sandys:
To follow on from that point, out of STV and an open list system,
what would you expect in terms of invalid votes? What sort of
attrition rate do you get? Does the size of the constituency also
matter?
Dr Renwick:
Evidence from Northern Ireland—Lord Trimble can no doubt
correct me—is that in most elections it has been about 1
per cent, which is the same essentially as for a Westminster election
under first past the post.
Lord Trimble:
We have very intelligent voters.
Laura Sandys:
That is STV, but what about the open list system? I suppose that
that depends on which open list system you adopt.
Dr Renwick:
I cannot give you a figure for that, I am afraid.
Professor McLean:
Alan is the best placed person in the UK, as the only one who
knows about the Hungarian electoral system, to answer that question.
If he cannot, then I am afraid that we will have to come back
with a note on that point.
Laura Sandys:
Okay, but there is very little difference. People say that it
is too complex and all the rest of it, but the attrition rate
is not very different from that in our existing system of first
past the post.
Dr Renwick:
There are not big differences between different voting systems
on this point. There are differences produced by whether you use
different electoral systems at the same time, which is a concern,
and there are differences produced by whether you have compulsory
voting, but simply by the electoral system there is no evidence
of which I am aware of big differences.
Q549 Laura Sandys:
Professor McLean, you talked about—I hope that this is not
going back over old ground for us; I am just interested in what
you say—the hierarchy of decision-making. You said that
you need to decide your system and then the number of people whom
you are electing and that that then defines in some ways the size
of your constituency. Is
that the hierarchy? We decide
the system and the number and that then throws up what the constituency
would look like, or is the hierarchy different?
Professor McLean:
Certainly in my view deciding district boundaries comes last of
those three tasks. The draft Bill, of course, provides for that
task to be delegated to an expert committee, who no doubt would
act in the light of the decisions that had been taken upstream
about the electoral system and House size. I do not think that
the electoral system and House size in any real sense depend on
each other, so long as the decision on district boundaries is
taken last, as I understand the scheme in the draft Bill allows
for, as it is delegated to an expert committee.
Q550 Mr Clarke:
Could I go back to the points that were made about independents?
I might have got this wrong, but it seems to me that we are all
accepting that it is a good thing to have independents and to
elect independents. Is that necessarily the case? We have talked—and
I underline "talked"—about a 15-year term. Heavens,
you could elect a one-trick pony who opposed the closure of a
hospital and find that over 15 years he or she could do whatever
he or she liked. Am I being over-emphatic?
Dr Renwick:
I do not want to express a strong view on whether there should
be independents. There is polling evidence that the public like
having independents in the second Chamber and a lot of the debate
surrounding the House of Lords has suggested that many people
find it desirable to have independents. I merely flag that as
being an issue that seems to be of concern in the debate rather
than one on which I have a strong position myself.
Professor McLean:
I second that.
Q551 Dr Poulter:
I just want to pick up on the issue of invalid votes that has
been raised. It is almost certainly going to be the case that
the elections for the reformed second Chamber will be on the same
day as a general election or another election. You may have different
voting systems in place at the same time. You will have first
past the post if there is a council election or a general election
and, alongside that, you will have potentially an open list or
STV. Do you have any evidence from examples overseas or elsewhere
of how different voting systems working alongside each other impact
on spoilt ballots?
Professor McLean:
Perhaps I can go first and then hand over to Alan. The awful example
of Scotland 2007 may be in the mind of a lot of Members, when
there undoubtedly was a high rate of invalid votes due in part
to the conjunction of different systems at the same time. But
I think that the report that was done on that calamity after the
fact discovered that other factors, which would not be replicated
because the lesson has been learnt, were more important in leading
to the high ratio of invalid votes. My impression is that Scotland
2011 has settled down back to the previous level of invalid votes.
At that point, I will hand over to Alan, if I may.
Dr Renwick:
Yes, I agree with that. The only other piece of evidence that
comes to mind is that which Professor Jon Tonge has submitted
to the Committee. He suggests that, in Northern Ireland this year,
as a result of combining the STV elections with the AV referendum,
there was a very small increase in the number of invalid votes—from
about 1 per cent to about 2 per cent. Whether it was due to the
fact that there were different forms of election or vote taking
place at the same time, we do not know.
Dr Poulter:
Is the experience that it is the established voting system—first
past the post, say—that is disrupted by the introduction
of a new system? Is it more likely to cause more spoilt ballots
in that system or is it more likely to cause more disruption to
the new system? Where
does the balance normally fall?
Clearly, if it is at
the same time as a general election, there would be some concern
that the introduction of a new voting system could have a disproportionate
effect on the outcome in marginal seats.
Professor McLean:
I do not think that there is any evidence on that from Scotland
or Wales—or, indeed, Northern Ireland, since Northern Ireland
also, as we know, uses first past the post for general elections.
Are you aware of any evidence either way, Alan?
Dr Renwick:
No, but one would expect it to depend in part on what returning
officers were willing to consider to be a valid vote. If returning
officers are willing to take an X in a box in an STV election
as a first preference vote for that candidate, you would not expect
too much of a problem in combining first past the post and STV.
Similarly, if a returning officer is willing to take a rank ordering
of candidates in a first past the post election as a vote for
the first preference candidate, there is not too much of a problem.
Dr Poulter:
And you think that, if the system was adopted, it would be useful
to have very clear advice that, where a voter's intention is clear,
that should be adopted as their preference of vote or candidate.
For example, if under first
past the post someone were to rank the candidates, that could
invalidate the ballot paper, but if there is clear intention the
returning officer should be mindful of it.
Dr Renwick:
Yes.
Q552
Baroness Symons of
Vernham Dean: In the
list system that you have described and in comparisons that you
have done with other countries, what level of the party concerned—national,
regional or local—decides who should go on the list? Where
are those decisions usually taken? Are they usually taken nationally
or are they usually taken locally?
Dr Renwick:
I think that there is considerable variation between different
countries on that. I am not aware of a general pattern, to be
honest.
Professor McLean:
Nor am I, I am afraid. If it is not specified in the legislation,
it would be a matter for the parties, I would have thought.
Q553
Baroness Symons of
Vernham Dean: Okay.
Do you support proportional representation in general?
Dr Renwick:
In general seems irrelevant. For the House of Lords, it strikes
me that, given that the near universal preference is for a system
in which no one party has an overall majority, it is necessary
to have a proportional system.
Baroness Symons of Vernham
Dean: But would you
have it in the House of Commons?
Dr Renwick:
I really do not think that my personal view has any bearing on
this issue at all, because I think that it is perfectly possible
to advocate different systems for different Chambers.
Baroness Symons of Vernham
Dean: It is a perfectly
reasonable question to put to you. If you do not want to answer,
because it is embarrassing, then do not, but I would have thought
that it was a reasonable question to put to you.
Dr Renwick:
My personal view is that our current system tends towards one
extreme on the proportionality issue. A fully proportional system
tends towards another extreme. In most such matters, some kind
of middling compromise is probably better.
Baroness Symons of Vernham
Dean: Can I ask you
the same question, Professor McLean?
Professor McLean:
Yes. I have no embarrassment in giving my views, as I am in print
on the subject. The discussion of this matter, in my view, is
pretty inadequate in most places. People talk about parliamentary
elections but, if Parliament comprises two Houses elected with
different purposes, it is a pretty basic principle that it makes
no sense to have the two Houses elected by the same system. Given
that the overall objectives of the scheme in this White Paper
are what they are, it is necessary, as Alan has just said, for
the electoral system to the upper House to be proportional. It
follows that I am in favour of retaining single-Member districts
for the House of Commons and I have said so in print, so I have
no embarrassment on that.
Baroness Symons of Vernham
Dean: And therefore
first past the post.
Professor McLean:
Not necessarily.
Q554 Lord Trefgarne:
Is it not the case that, whatever form of PR you use—party
list, closed list, STV or AV—you almost always end up with
a smaller turnout than you do with a first past the post system?
Why do you think that is the case and what can we do about it?
Dr Renwick:
This is a point on which we have very clear empirical evidence
from a large number of countries, which is that, at least in advanced
democracies, turnout is on average 8 percentage points higher
under proportional systems than under majoritarian systems. So
the evidence is, in fact, the opposite of what you have just stated.
Lord Trefgarne:
But when we have PR-based elections here, such as European elections,
the turnout is sometimes derisory.
Dr Renwick:
It is less derisory than it was under first past the post before
1999.
Lord Trefgarne:
Perhaps that is a European consideration rather than an electoral
one.
Professor McLean:
Perhaps I can help here. Political scientists recognise first
and second order elections. European elections are second—or
perhaps nth—order and public interest in them is very low.
That is held to be the reason for the differential in turnout
between European elections and House of Commons elections.
Lord Trefgarne:
If the system that we decide on is too complex, one fears that,
even if they do vote, people will spoil their papers, perhaps
inadvertently, and so we shall need a good educational arrangement
if that is what we decide on.
Professor McLean:
My answer to that would be to appeal to the intelligence of voters
in Northern Ireland, as Lord Trimble already has. It has not been
found to be difficult there.
Lord Trefgarne:
I must confess that I do not know the turnout figures for Northern
Ireland—they are very good, are they?
Q555 Bishop of Leicester:
In response to the Lord Chairman, you gave us some very helpful
summarising observations about the relative merits of these two
systems. Listening to the conversation, I think that these merits
seem to be weighed in terms of voter behaviour, voter understanding
and outcomes. I may have missed it but I have not heard from you
an equally clear summary of political behaviour related to these
two systems. Perhaps you could provide that. Is there some academic
analysis of the way in which politicians elected under one system
behave relative to those elected under the other system that might
help us? I am sorry if that is a naive question, but I come as
a non-expert.
Professor McLean:
There is a lot of assertion in this area as to how politicians
elected under the different systems behave. I am sure that this
has already been presented as evidence to you, but the evidence
of how politicians behave under single transferable vote is quite
different in Northern Ireland from what it is in the Republic
of Ireland. From that, I conclude that the electoral system is
not the main thing that determines how politicians behave. I think
that the behaviour of politicians elected to the House proposed
in this White Paper would be influenced most of all by the non-renewability
of their term. Therefore, the worries that a number of people
have expressed about what is seen as the unduly particularistic
behaviour of members of the Dáil of the Irish Republic
competing against other members of the same party are not an issue
with this scheme. I end up as I started by saying that, since
the same electoral system leads to politicians behaving in quite
different ways in two parts of a single island, it is impossible
to make any generalisations based on system alone.
Dr Renwick:
I agree with all of that. The issue of behaviour during election
campaigns might be a concern—as well as behaviour after
elections—and there is not a clear difference there between
open list and STV because it depends on the nature of the open
list system. If you have an open list system that places a lot
of emphasis on party, the campaign will largely be a party campaign.
If you have a system where candidates are competing rather more
against each other for the vote—in the election campaign,
not subsequently—there would be more of an individual campaign,
as you would expect under STV.
Bishop of Leicester:
If the electoral system is not a key determinant of subsequent
behaviour, what would you say the key determinants are?
Professor McLean:
I can only repeat that the most important fact about this scheme
is its non-renewability. People will behave as they behave. Different
people will bring different skills and attitudes to the upper
House and will, I am sure, behave in quite different ways. Some
will be party loyalists, some will not; some will wish to serve
on scrutiny Committees, some will not. But that is going beyond
our expert brief and I would rather not say more than that.
Bishop of Leicester:
That is when it begins to get interesting. Is the implication
of that that the outcome of what is proposed in the Bill—15
years non-renewable—is fairly difficult to predict or determine
on the basis of available academic evidence?
Dr Renwick:
If we try to simply derive knowledge from evidence, there is no
Chamber with a 15-year non-renewable term. There is only one national
parliamentary Chamber with a non-renewable term, in Mexico, and
I do not think that we can garner very much evidence from that.
We can hope to derive some insight from general patterns that
operate elsewhere, but we cannot take direct evidence.
Professor McLean:
If it helps, quite a number of executive posts are term-limited,
the most obvious being the President of the United States, but
no lessons can be drawn from that because the situation of a term-limited
single person is completely different from that of a body of 300
Members, each of whom is term-limited but who retire in three
different tranches.
The Chairman:
On the issue of political behaviour, surely the existing House
of Lords is very interesting. Life Peers are here for life; they
cannot be thrown out. Nevertheless, the loyalty of the individual
life Peer to his or her political party is really quite extraordinary.
If you look at the voting, the extent to which Labour Peers vote
Labour and Conservative Peers vote Conservative in Divisions in
the House is really very considerable. It seems that political
animals tend to act politically—I do not know whether that
is a particular insight.
Dr Renwick:
Yes, and I do not see any reason to expect significant change
in that as a result of any of what is proposed.
Q556
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield:
I take Mr Clarke's point about independents riding in on the back
of one particular issue and then being there for 15 years, but
there does seem to be a groundswell, wherever you stand on the
question of the Lords—whether you want it to remain much
as it is now or whether you want it to be largely elected—that
you need a very stiff dose of independence of spirit in the upper
Chamber. I take Richard's law, as I now call it, that political
animals tend to act politically, as well. Can you think of a cunning
plan to increase the chances under STV, as would happen under
this Bill, of that happening, bearing in mind John Major's dictum
that the answer is not more politicians? If you can think of a
cunning plan, you could have your footnote in political science
for ever as "Rotating Renwick" and "Inclusive McLean".
Do you have a cunning plan lurking in your little grey cells?
Professor McLean:
That is a very hard question because it is not clear that all
Members of this Committee actually want to maximise independence
of spirit, so anything that we said would be acceptable to some
but not to others. Fundamentally, it is a decision for the British
people. It is for the British people to decide how much independence
of spirit they want in their elected representatives. So I am
afraid that I have no "McLean Plan", at any rate.
Dr Renwick:
As I suggested when I was here last time, the bigger issue is
not the process by which people are chosen but the terms of service
that they then serve under. The notion of being expected to serve
full-time for 15 years seems likely to put off many able candidates
with other good things to do whom we might want to continue doing
those things during their time of service. That is where I would
focus attention on that point, rather than the electoral system.
Q557 Lord Hennessy of
Nympsfield: Mr Heald
asked about Australia and your answers covered very well why there
are so few independents there. The Republic of Ireland has a considerable
number. Does that reflect the fluidity of Irish party politics?
What are the other comparisons in the world? What systems and
what countries tend to produce a more fluid mix in elected upper
Chambers?
Dr Renwick:
If we are looking at proportional systems, Ireland is the only
country that has any significant representation for independents:
there are currently 15. Australia has one, as you said. Malta
is the only other case with STV; it has no independents, but it
has a very strong party system. In Ireland, 15 independents is
a post-war high, and that presumably reflects dissatisfaction
with the political parties surrounding the current economic crisis.
Background popular sentiment towards parties is a more important
factor. There are very, very few independents elected in any form
of list system. In fact, at present there is a total of five in
the world in national Parliaments; those are all in Chile. Chile
has a proportional electoral system in which you elect only two
people from each constituency, so it is barely proportional; it
does not really work as a proportional system. Apart from that,
if you look at list systems at the national level, there are no
independents. Of course, the Scots will point to Margo MacDonald
in the Scottish Parliament, so it is not impossible but it is
very rare.
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield:
So the conclusion is, as was put rather well by somebody who knows
about these things, that the British people seem to want elected
experts in the House of Lords, which is the one thing they cannot
have, and what you have just said seems to buttress that conclusion.
Dr Renwick:
It depends on who chooses to stand for election, more than anything
else. Given the popular interest in having independents, it seems
reasonable to expect that, as long as they have some name recognition,
given the very large regions that you would need, some would be
elected.
Professor McLean:
Of course, it also depends on parties' strategies for nominating
their candidates.
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield:
Is there not a danger that the celebrity factor is the one that
would make the weather? The independents would either be local
celebrities or have national name recognition. Is that not the
problem—the Jeremy Clarkson factor?
Professor McLean:
National name recognition is not relevant because we are talking
about sub-national constituencies. Within Scotland Margo MacDonald
undoubtedly has national name recognition, but in general that
is not a relevant factor.
Q558 Ann Coffey:
To follow on from that, people who stand in the name of a party
have considerable support from their party. One
of the problems of standing as an independent is that you do not
have that kind of support, and it is probably quite expensive
to stand for election without a party organisation. If one of
the reasons for proposing STV was to ensure that more independents
were elected, rather than party politicians behaving more independently,
what do you think about giving greater support to people to stand
outside the party system as a way of getting more independents
elected?
Professor McLean:
If it were a policy aim to have more people who were independent
of party elected, I would imagine that either the Bill or secondary
legislation would have to have detailed provisions in which various
thresholds were lower for independent candidates than for party
candidates. I do not think it very likely that the UK Parliament
would vote for such a set of regulations, but that is what would
be required.
Ann Coffey:
What about financial support? I was not thinking about having
different criteria for election for independents.
Dr Renwick:
I think it would be difficult to introduce financial support for
independents because the question would arise of which candidates
to give support to. There is unlikely to be a previous election
for an independent that you could use as an indication of levels
of support. I would be more inclined to favour tight spending
limits as a way of restricting the parties' advantage over independents
rather than trying to boost independents.
Q559 Ann Coffey:
If you were thinking of having a House of Lords with 400 Members,
comparable to the Commons, on a regional system based on the current
European parliamentary regions, what
system would be best for ensuring transparency and ease of voting
and maximising voter choice, in electing both independents or
the party of their choice?
Dr Renwick:
If a criterion is electing independents, in my view that already
means STV—
Ann Coffey:
No, just maximising—that is not the sole criterion.
Dr Renwick:
You can have either an STV system or an open list system in which
voters have a decent chance to express a range of preferences.
As Iain suggested, in either case it is sensible to restrict the
number of people being elected from each region in order to prevent
the choice from becoming excessively burdensome. The proposal
for five to seven seats per region is reasonable for achieving
that under either STV or a form of open list system that gives
voters quite extensive choice. If you have an open list system
that gives voters less choice, you can allow bigger regions. However,
if you want to give a lot of choice, you should restrict the size
of the regions.
Professor McLean:
As I said in my earlier answer to Laura Sandys, it seems that
that is a downstream decision, both as a matter of this draft
Bill and as a matter of common sense. You decide the prior matters
first and then, if this draft Bill is enacted, you hand the decision
on district size to an external expert body.
Q560
Lord Rooker:
I want to ask you about your points about vacancies on page 3
of your note, but I will start with a general point. In the main,
would your answers change according to whether there was going
to be a 100 per cent elected House of Lords or the 80:20?
Dr Renwick:
No.
Professor McLean:
I think not, although some of the points made by Lord Hennessy
are clearly easier to deal with in an 80:20 House than in a 100
per cent elected House, but that is again straying outside our
area of expertise.
Lord Rooker:
So the 20 per cent of experts and "independents" would
be here already in the one system. You have made it clear that
for you STV is a candidate-centred electoral system as opposed
to the others, which are party-centred. We are told that this
Bill is supposed to bring about new politics and smash up the
party system. I agree with that, by the way. We are not electing
a Government in the House of Lords; we are electing a revising
Chamber, so why the hell have parties got to have a role in it?
In other words, for a candidate-centred system, whether or not
it is the 80:20 or the 100, it would still be STV, albeit constrained
by having six or seven candidates elected. Would that still be
the situation?
Dr Renwick:
We should remember the distinction that Iain made at the start.
I do not think that you can dichotomise between candidate-centred
and party-centred, because you can be candidate-centred within
parties or you can be candidate-centred in the sense of having
independents. STV clearly favours having independents. With regard
to whether the system is party-centred or candidate-centred within
political parties—this is about the amount of power the
parties have—the simple choice between STV and open list
does not make very much difference. The form of open list makes
some difference but, given non-renewable terms and so on, probably
not very much.
Q561 Lord Rooker:
The paragraph on page 3 of your paper that refers to the "obscure
aspect" in the Bill about filling vacancies suggests that
the parties can basically rig the system by not putting up sufficient
candidates so that there is no failed candidate to take a by-election—you
cannot fill a vacancy in that way. What is the solution to that?
Dr Renwick:
My expectation would be that parties would put up candidates in
case they had to fill vacancies. The rigging that could happen
if you did not have that procedure for filling vacancies—"rigging"
is a bit of a strong word—would be that parties might put
up only as many candidates as they thought would be elected and
voters would not be able to choose among candidates from the same
party. You guard against that possibility by having this procedure
for filling vacancies in that parties have a strong incentive
to put up more candidates than they think they are going to elect
first time round because, if they do not and if there is a vacancy,
they lose the seat and it goes to someone else.
The Chairman:
I have two names left—Lord Trimble and Lord Norton—and
then I want to ask another question, because we have been concentrating
on this for a very long time.
Q562
Lord Trimble:
I have several questions, actually, but I will try to run through
them quickly. First, on a matter of information, looking to our
neighbourhood in terms of Europe and the electoral systems there,
how many closed list systems and how many open list systems are
there?
Dr Renwick:
Gosh, I cannot give you the figures off the top of my head. I
could sit here and add them up, if you want. In terms of fully
open list systems, in which the voters have full power to determine
the order of candidates, there is Finland, Latvia, Lithuania,
Greece—and that is about it. In terms of systems in which
voters can express a preference or not and there is a combination
of voters' choices and parties' preferred ordering determining
the outcome, you have Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Slovenia, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
Lord Trimble:
Are the remainder all closed list?
Dr Renwick:
Most of the remainder are closed list. There is also France, which
has a majoritarian system, and Malta, which has STV.
Lord Trimble:
So the really fully open list is only in a handful of comparatively
small states.
Dr Renwick:
The more common system is one in which voters have a choice to
vote for the party list as a whole or to express a preference.
Lord Trimble:
Of course, as we know, only Malta uses STV.
Dr Renwick:
And Ireland.
Lord Trimble:
Well, that is on the other side; I am looking towards Europe at
the moment. Why has there been no campaign within Europe to have
STV if STV is so much better?
Dr Renwick:
Because political parties choose electoral systems, on the whole.
Lord Trimble:
So it is purely because of the political parties. There is no
popular feeling on this issue.
Dr Renwick:
For public opinion to get excited about the electoral system,
funny things need to happen. It does not happen very often; it
has not happened terribly much. Also, you need people in influential
positions who are able to steer the debate in the direction of
STV.
Lord Trimble:
There must be some significance in the fact that STV is such an
eccentric choice. It hardly ever happens that people actually
choose it.
Professor McLean:
Perhaps I can follow Alan on that one. The triggers have not occurred
in Europe, but they have occurred elsewhere. There was a trigger
in New Zealand, as people know, and a trigger in Italy.
Lord Trimble:
Ireland never decided to have STV; STV was imposed on Ireland,
in both parts.
Professor McLean:
That is certainly true.
Lord Trimble:
It was never a choice.
Dr Renwick:
It was supported by Sinn Féin in 1922.
Professor McLean:
As Lord Trimble and, I am sure, other Members will know, although
STV was imposed on both parts of Ireland by the British, it was
the Irish who rose up twice against their political parties to
retain the system when the then dominant party attempted to abolish
it.
Lord Trimble:
The public worked out the propensity of the Government towards
gerrymandering, but that is by the way. Professor McLean, you
said that there was a difference between Northern Ireland and
the Republic of Ireland in the extent to which parochialism was
a consequence of STV. I am just curious to know why you think
that Northern Ireland varies from the Republic in this case.
Professor McLean:
I would hesitate to offer an opinion on a subject on which you,
Lord Trimble, are more expert than I am. I merely comment on the
well-known fact that particularism and a desire for favours, not
just for a Dáil constituency but for one corner of a Dáil
constituency, have been a well-remarked feature of Republic of
Ireland politics for decades, and I am not aware that it has been
a feature of Northern Ireland politics.
Lord Trimble:
I would suggest that it can be seen in Northern Ireland in the
desire of people to retain district council seats. We are now
trying to bring an end to this double-jobbing and we have managed
to get a certain amount of popular support to end double-jobbing.
But left to themselves the Members overwhelmingly wanted to stay
in local government as well as being in the Assembly. Indeed—and
this is a judgment that may not make me popular with Members of
the Northern Ireland Assembly—this has tended to result
in the Assembly being dominated by district council types and
the parochialism is just as marked. The clientism may not be as
significant as in the Republic of Ireland, but parochialism is.
Sorry, I am making speeches again. I will stop now.
Ann Coffey:
I find it quite interesting, actually.
Q563 Lord Trimble:
I must stop now. Reference was made to the experience of filling
vacancies. Have you any views on the two different systems that
have been adopted for filling vacancies? There have been three
altogether: the original system followed by two different systems
for filling vacancies in Northern Ireland—have you any views
on them?
Dr Renwick:
My view is that any system that involves the parties or the legislature
merely choosing people at the time of the vacancy loses the benefit
that I was discussing in relation to Lord Rooker's question.
Lord Trimble:
Would you take account of the fact that the reason why there has
been a move towards nomination on vacancies rather than having
by-elections is that, if you have by-elections under an STV system,
the by-election can distort the party balance as a determinant
of the election?
Dr Renwick:
Absolutely, yes. I think a by-election is not a good idea. With
regard to the second Chamber, there is the further issue that
we have large regions and therefore a by-election would be expensive.
Lord Trimble:
It would be no more awkward than an individual independent running
in the region at a by-election. If you have a by-election, you
are electing one person for the region and that is the same if
an independent is contesting the region. It is the same awful
uphill struggle in that respect.
Dr Renwick:
Sure.
Lord Trimble:
One other thing—
The Chairman:
We are getting a bit Hibernian, I think. Perhaps we are concentrating
too much on Northern Ireland.
Q564
Lord Trimble:
On STV generally, have you any views on the way in which parties
try to manage votes and the vote management systems for STV?
Professor McLean:
Those systems exist. They do not always achieve what the politicians
who designed them intended them to achieve, notably in the Republic
of Ireland. I do not think it is that much of an issue in these
proposed elections. For example, under STV a party may want to
maximise the number of its candidates who get elected. There is
not a lot it can do. As to which of its candidates get elected,
the party can make its own view clear. I am not sure that clever
Irish strategies can do much better for it than just making clear
which is its favourite candidate.
Dr Renwick:
The main concern about party management strategies that I am aware
of comes from Australia, where "how to vote" cards are
used by most voters. Again, we have to remember that Australian
voters have to fill in all the preferences unless they just tick
the box at the top, so the burden is greater.
Lord Trimble:
I do not wish to invoke the ire of the Lord Chairman, but I have
to say, Professor McLean, that I disagree with your comments.
Q565 Lord Norton of Louth:
As has been mentioned, the intention is that Members of the second
Chamber would not have constituency work and the limited single
term is designed to discourage that from happening. Would not
the obvious electoral system therefore be a closed list system,
in that open list or STV would encourage potential competition
between candidates in the same party, and the danger is that,
to distinguish one from the other, they may be making promises
to the constituency?
Professor McLean:
On the other hand, a closed list system would give very extensive
power to the Whips of whichever party it was to nominate in first
position the kind of person who would be expected to cause least
trouble to the Lords Whips of that party.
Lord Norton of Louth:
As happens with the European list.
Dr Renwick:
That seems to me a greater danger, given the points that have
already been raised. If you have non-renewable terms and very
large regions, there is not a significant danger of that kind
of constituency focus in the proposed second Chamber.
Lord Norton of Louth:
So there would not be much difference between open list and closed
list.
Dr Renwick:
You give voters a greater sense of being able to influence who
gets elected. You give parties an incentive to come up with candidates
who will attract votes. There are other benefits.
Lord Norton of Louth:
But there is little likelihood of voters exercising that independent
choice if you have constituencies on that scale.
Dr Renwick:
I do not see any reason to think that. Voters would not be exercising
that choice on the basis of perceptions of who would serve the
constituency most effectively, although people who speak up for
Scotland and Wales are likely to do rather well—and Northern
Ireland, of course.
Lord Norton of Louth:
What do you assume they would make the choice on the basis of
if they are going to distinguish between candidates of the same
party?
Dr Renwick:
Hopefully who they think would do the best job. I do not think
we can presuppose what voters will think that means, but it strikes
me that they will have rather little opportunity to vote for people
who are selling themselves as doing the best job in terms of bringing
the pork back home to this little local area.
Lord Norton of Louth:
Or large local area.
Dr Renwick:
Exactly. It is not a little local area, so that argument does
not work.
Q566
The Chairman:
Does the fact that the proposal is for a 15-year non-renewable
term have any effect on your answers?
Dr Renwick:
It has a huge effect. For example, if the proposal were to have
regions of this size but with renewable five-year terms I would
expect the Members to make more effort to appeal to their region.
They could not do that in the way that is possible in a local
constituency—it would be very different from what is possible
in a local constituency.
Professor McLean:
We all know that that already happens with MEPs. We all get letters
through our door from each of our MEPs saying what they have done
for our region. It is the non-renewability, not the length of
term, that makes this system entirely different from the situation
of MEPs.
Q567
The Chairman:
If you have an open list, with the possibility of selecting individual
candidates from different parties, which is one of the possibilities
that we have been looking at, what is to choose between that and
STV?
Dr Renwick:
First you would work out the total number of seats won by each
party, which would be determined by the total number of votes
won by each party. Under STV, the total number of seats won by
each party is a product of counting the votes for individual candidates.
You would start off by aggregating the votes within each party
and then use votes among the party's candidates in order to determine
the distribution of those seats among those candidates.
Q568
The Chairman:
I have one final question. We have heard that counts in Ireland,
both north and south, tend to take a long time. Is that an inevitable
factor as far as STV or open list is concerned, even without counting
machines?
Professor McLean:
My view is that it is a relatively small point either way, given
that the technology exists. There is a question for computer scientists
rather than for us as to how that technology is validated in real
time on the night, but my view, for what it is worth, is that
that is a secondary consideration.
Dr Renwick:
Yes. I have seen some concerns about the notion that a count in
Northern Ireland might take two days. That seems to me utterly
trivial. It may cause upset among the candidates who are waiting
but from a broader perspective it really does not matter.
The Chairman:
It does if you are a candidate. To be hanging on 48 hours after
the polls close before you know whether you are going to be elected
or not does not seem like a very good idea.
Thank you both very much for coming.
We have learnt a great deal. You have exposed our deficiencies
and I am very grateful to you.
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