| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
I disagree fundamentally with my noble friend Lord Maxton—and he is a friend—who said that first past the post is better than any alternative. I do not agree—the noble Lord, Lord Steel, referred to this—that, following the Scottish Constitutional Convention, of which I was also a member, Donald Dewar, the then Secretary of State for Scotland, should have gone back on a commitment in the 1997 election manifesto for the Labour Party and resorted to a first past the post system for the Scottish Parliament. That would have been disastrous, and I must say to my noble friend that I do not think that that is something that Donald Dewar would have ever seriously considered, given the way in which he conducted politics. I understand why my noble friend said that, possibly in the light of events since then.
We are now in the third Session of the Scottish Parliament. The first two were Labour/Liberal Democrat coalitions, and the third is an SNP minority. The situation has been similar in Wales, with coalitions and minority Administrations. Neither Scotland nor Wales has ground to a halt in the past eight and a half years, despite the fact no one party has been in power for that time. I know very little of Wales, but it seems that there has been a feeling that this is different from Westminster in that it is a different way of having a level of government. The question then is: if you accept that a more proportional system is appropriate at the local government level or the “regional” government level, is it appropriate at the national level as well? I would say that it is.
The noble Lord, Lord Steel, referred to the not unimportant issue in proportional systems, particularly those that use the additional member system, of the friction between the constituency Members and the list members. I encountered that as well. The noble Lord may recall from his days as Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament that he established a committee, of which I was a member, to look at how best we could finesse the emerging problems in the early days of the Scottish Parliament, whereby, as he suggested, unsuccessful candidates could appear across the Chamber from directly elected Members who had seen them off at the ballot box.
My view is clear; the Welsh have gone down the right road—you should not be able to stand in two categories. You make your choice wherever you think you have the best chance of being elected and you are stuck with it one way or the other. That gets over that problem. However, I did not encounter list members trying to take over the duties of the elected Member to
13 Mar 2008 : Column 1598
That leads to me a comment made by, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, that first past the post was uniquely effective in changing a government. If you were a voter in recent years in Spain, Germany or Sweden, you would feel that you had pretty effectively changed your government fairly dramatically in general elections under proportional systems. I understand the noble Lord’s comments, but it is perfectly possible under proportional systems to have a fairly dramatic change of government, particularly in Sweden where the Social Democrats lost power after many years.
I shall say a little about proportional representation and the way in which it impacts on voters. I notice that the review found no voting system to be inherently more confusing than another for the voter in terms of casting votes correctly. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, who said in his opening remarks that, despite a lot of reports in UK newspapers that the electoral system in Scotland confused voters to such an extent that there were many spoilt papers in Scotland in the May 2007 elections, that has been shown to be completely untrue. It was not the new system of the STV that confused people, as one might have thought it would the first time it ever applied in Scotland, but the system that Scotland had also used in 1999 and 2003. The problem was that the system had moved from two separate ballot papers to one ballot paper.
The independent Gould report, which looked into those issues, reported that there were two major ways in which confusion could be avoided. One was to have a much longer lead-in time to explain the changes to people. The second was not to combine local elections with the Scottish Parliament election on the same day. It is interesting that the Scottish Parliament has since legislated for that, and there will be no recurrence of it. That is an important aspect.
The link between a member and the constituency is important but can be overstated. Noble Lords have referred to the fact that often under first past the post a small number of voters decide the outcome for the whole UK election. Not only do a large number of people not have a say in the ultimate outcome of a general election in the UK under first past the post but also the three major political parties tailor their election manifestos to a small, narrow number of people—a clearly unrepresentative part of the electorate. Parts of the electorate get a disproportionate amount of attention
13 Mar 2008 : Column 1599
That is not particularly health for democracy. Better to be able to make a broader approach to different parts of the electorate in a more positive manner and hope that they will in turn vote positively because they can see that there is something in it for them. There is nothing wrong with the way the electorate votes being influenced to some extent by what will benefit them personally. They will also vote because it will actually influence the outcome of the election.
It is clear that we are some way yet from a change to the method by which the other place is elected. As far as this House is concerned, I would not like to say how long it will be—if at all—before change comes about. I echo the position of the noble Lord, Lord Steel, in that I voted a year ago for a fully elected House of Lords. That is the way forward. Yet what is to be decided in the other place is of greater urgency. It should hold primacy but, if you have two elected Houses, ultimately there has to be some means found of reconciling them. That will have to be done before we move towards thinking about what method of election is utilised.
It is often said that nothing stands still, which is not always true at all. Yet it is true much of the time in politics and political parties are constantly renewing themselves, their approach and polices. It seems illogical then that the way they are elected at UK level should not be capable of being renewed. It is instructive to note that while the other place has firmly maintained first past the post as the means of its election, electoral systems elsewhere in the world and other parts of the UK have moved on. They have done so significantly in the various parliaments and assemblies that noble Lords have referred to. It is hard to maintain why the two Houses here should not move on, too.
The question of renewing and reenergising democracy that the noble Lord, Lord Norton, raised with my noble friend Lady Kennedy is important. If people feel more involved they are more likely to think that voting is important. That is particularly true in young people. We know the way in which the level of voting in young people is going at the moment. Though it is not my own view, it is clear that first past the post will continue for the foreseeable future. Yet the sands will shift sooner rather than later and when they do they will shift decisively.
1.01 pm
Lord Roberts of Llandudno: My Lords, many of us will remember the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa, when folk had their first opportunity of casting a vote. I remember a television clip of a polling station in Soweto. The polling lasted at least three days because there were so many people waiting to vote. There was one old lady who had been there for two days. On the second evening, when she was just
13 Mar 2008 : Column 1600
We speak sometimes of “strong government”. I have spoken to the Minister about this before. That lady in Soweto had experienced strong government. She had experienced the government of apartheid. The people of Germany experienced Adolf Hitler’s strong government. Mussolini, Franco, too, had strong governments. Is government just to be strong or is it to be representative? I suggest, particularly to those who have doubts about changing systems, that government must be representative of every person. Those ladies in Soweto, and the people who were disenfranchised for so many years in Russia and other places, now have the opportunity of making their views known.
When governments are elected on the present voting system, we know that 38 per cent of those who vote can return a government. Some 62 per cent of votes are then not of the same value. Those votes are largely dismissed. Strong government is said to be more important than representative government. I strongly argue that that must not be the case. When we speak of coalitions and so on, we must learn that we are living in a different generation where people must live, work and discuss together. That is a mature approach. Any voting system must be fair and give fair representation. There, first past the post is a failure.
When there were only two parties you could say that first past the post largely worked, though electorates in different constituencies meant that some people elected somebody with a larger number of votes than in another constituency. In the election of 1906, only two constituencies in Wales—Gower and Monmouth—had more than two candidates. It was a straight fight everywhere else. In the election of January 1910, there was only one three-cornered fight in Wales, in Swansea Town. In December 1910, there were only two three-cornered fights. Straight fights or unopposed returns were the norm.
Since then, of course, there has been the emergence of third and fourth parties. In 1910 there was one three-cornered fight. In 1918, with the emergence of the Labour Party in Wales, there were 11 three-cornered fights. Now you get elections in Wales with four candidates—Plaid, Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat. Under first past the post, a Member can be elected with less than 30 per cent of the vote. That happened in Scotland, in Inverness about 30 years ago, with a Member elected with just 26 per cent of the vote.
First past the post is the system of the dinosaur. It worked yesterday but does not work today. It is not representative today. This is true not only of individual consistencies but also of Wales as a whole. In 1997,
13 Mar 2008 : Column 1601
We have the top-up system for Wales, Scotland and the London Assembly. In Scotland, with 32 per cent of votes Labour won 37 constituency seats. The SNP, with one per cent more, 33 per cent, won 21 constituency seats. Is 37 to 21 a fair result? It was the introduction of the top-up system that changed that situation and the result was 47 seats for SNP and 46 for Labour. Otherwise the Government of Scotland under first past the post would have been very different from what we see today. At the most recent elections for the Welsh Assembly, the Labour Party had 32.2 per cent of the vote and won 24 out of the 40 seats. The system changed with top-up and now there is a different sort of government. The type of electoral system changes governments. In Scotland and Wales, it will be different.
Until now, we know that the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have supported the first past the post system. They merely say, “Over my dead body”. But the internal elections of those parties use a proportional system. If some sort of proportional system is not acceptable in the country at large, why is it used by the Labour Party and the Conservative Party for their internal elections? About two years ago, the Conservatives elected a new leader. The MPs had the first say on voting for a new leader. In the first round, David Davis got 62 votes and David Cameron got 56 votes. Under the first past the post system, David Davis would have been elected as leader of the Conservative Party. A few months ago, the Labour Party elected a deputy leader. In the first ballot, Jon Cruddas won 19.39 per cent of the vote and Harriet Harman got 18.9 per cent. So Jon Cruddas is the deputy leader: but, no, he is not, because what is right for the country is not accepted by the Labour Party itself. That is rank hypocrisy. Will the Minister explain why? I could go on, but I must not because I can get very passionate when I see injustices of this nature.
Referenda will become things of the past if you have a fair representation of the views of people. They must because, under a representative system, you will have the voices and opinions of people. Why do the Government not move after this substantial, in-depth review of a very unjust system?
1.12 pm
Lord Grocott: My Lords, I, too, am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for giving us the opportunity to discuss electoral systems or, more specifically, to discuss this report. We also should congratulate the Government on setting up the report and for it being available as a textbook. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Steel, that people will not flock to the bookstalls to buy a copy. In fact, I dare say that noble Lords taking part in this debate probably represent quite a significant proportion of those who have read the volume. None the less, it is of great advantage to have this document before us.
13 Mar 2008 : Column 1602
I speak as someone who has always supported the system of first past the post, and my support has grown. That perhaps is in denial of my own experience, because few people in this House have lost as many elections under the first past the post system as I have managed to do. I think that I could have been forgiven for embracing any other electoral system that might have put my name at the top of the results. But, no, I am a passionate supporter of the first past the post system and I shall spell out some of the reasons later.
I am keen on this document because, despite supporting the first past the post system, I have always historically felt at a disadvantage in this kind of discussion. It has always taken the form of one group of people saying that proportional representation is wonderful for all sorts of reasons. People like me have had the job of saying, “Well, the first past the post system—with which everyone is very familiar and therefore familiar, as I certainly am, with its disadvantages—is an aspiration against a reality”. That is the form of the debate.
The great joy of this document is that it gives us a wealth of evidence on the strengths and weaknesses of practical systems that have been adopted in this country for the past 11 years. We need no longer talk about the wonders of proportional representation; we can talk about the precise experience of how it is operated in a number of different systems. The noble Lord, Lord Steel, was frank, as usual, in acknowledging that other systems have their disadvantages as they have performed in practice in this country. As I expected, it is a joy to have this discussion now and not have to be on the defensive all the time; to be able to point out from this document, which I am sure we have all read, the failings as have been exhibited in a number of systems that have been tried. They were tried for good reasons, and I supported their introduction, as a supporter of the Government, but they now have serious weaknesses.
What are my conclusions about the practical experience, as evidenced by this report? Obviously, it demonstrates beyond any argument that all systems have clear weaknesses. That is unarguable. It is logically inevitable that the only person who can represent me or anyone else is me or anyone else. Any system which tries to reduce an electorate of 60 million, as in Britain, to—let us say for the sake of argument—600, is bound to have distortions between the one and the other. At least we can start with the clear agreement that all systems have faults.
We can also agree that far from solving or concluding the debate about the merits of different systems, the series of proportional systems that we have had in the past nine or 10 years has, if anything, extended the debate and created a greater uncertainty, assuming that there was an uncertainty before. The electoral systems I hear criticised most frequently—indeed, in this debate—are the system for electing the European Parliament—people have a lot of criticisms of that proportional system—and, as two or three noble Lords have mentioned, the dual system in Scotland and Wales. We hear endlessly about the discussions and debates between the people on the list and those who are elected directly. But I make a lateral comment about it: in Scotland and Wales you have the two sides
13 Mar 2008 : Column 1603
I put this question and I leave it in the air: is anyone suggesting that the people on the list in those systems are more legitimately representative than the people directly elected in the individual constituencies? I would say that the evidence is overwhelmingly the reverse. If we are talking about the legitimacy of elections and the legitimacy of people speaking on behalf of others, there is no doubt, in my view, that the people directly elected in an individual constituency are seen as the most legitimate and, I would guess, even by supporters of proportional representation. Obviously, there are better experts on Scotland and Wales than me here today, but, as I understand it, if there is any movement from an elected representative being chosen by one mechanism rather than the other, there is no movement whatever from people representing constituencies saying, “No, I want to abandon the constituency. I want to be on a list because that is more legitimate”. I have not heard that argument.
The other thing that we can learn from this document goes to the heart of a lot of the discussion. There is no evidence here that will encourage people to think that there is a magic solution on turnout and on engaging the electorate as a result of the methods of proportional representation used in this country. On the contrary: the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, quoted from the same paragraph that I am about to quote from, although he inadvertently did not complete the sentence. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, quoted from paragraph 23, on page 12. He quoted:
“International evidence suggests that proportional systems have around five percent higher turn-out”.
I shall complete the sentence which continues,
That is the evidence of the document.
In past debates, I have had a kind of inferiority complex about how to handle the argument—and it has been deployed in this debate—that there are lots of people itching to vote in safe seats for the other party who will be liberated if there is a proportional system so that all votes count. I seem to remember from the past that there is a phrase in there somewhere. There is no evidence whatever that that has happened in the European, the Scottish or the Welsh elections.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie: My Lords, I take the point that my noble friend is making, but would he accept that he is not comparing like with like? People vote for the Chamber—if I can use that term—that they feel is most important. Therefore local government is less so than a Parliament or Assembly, which in turn is less important than national Government. The comparison, if my noble friend wants to make it, should be with national Governments here and in other countries which perhaps use a proportional system.
Lord Grocott: My Lords, I disagree with my noble friend on that. I am pretty wary of making comparisons internationally. Similar systems operate differently in different countries. The best comparisons are those
13 Mar 2008 : Column 1604
These papers also demonstrate that it does not improve the involvement of the electorate with their Member of Parliament, elected by whatever mechanism. We knew that—or should have—from the earlier report on electoral systems, published in 2003. It said about the European elections:
“Few MEPs felt that their constituency workload had increased, despite the move to larger multi-member regions. The vast bulk of MEPs admitted that their constituency workload had not increased (a mere 8% claimed that it had); if anything, the amount of constituency work has declined”.
That is only one measure of the link between the elected representative and the electorate, but it is a pretty important one. It seems that first past the post is reflecting the truth accurately when it says that it provides a link with the electorate that other mechanisms do not.
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |