Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker]

My Lords, I decided not to move two earlier amendments today. I wanted to concentrate on the main cause, which is this one and I freely admit is not run of the mill. I came across a reference—only a reference—to the system in a footnote to some text I read recently. I thought it was the solution. One way or another, the central flaw in AV has been explained by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours. It will be incredibly difficult to explain to people.

I am not arguing about the text; I know what I understood and I explained what I wanted. It is the vote for the person who comes last, whether they are third, fourth or fifth, that gets transferred. It is true that that is the only vote that gets transferred. I might be accused of being completely unfair but I look on that allocation as a new vote. The others have not been altered. These are new votes coming into the system. If there were seven candidates, the one coming seventh would be knocked out. I have assumed that the bottom one would be knocked out but sometimes it might be the bottom two. The reallocation of the second choices of the voters who voted for the candidate who came seventh would be new votes for the top six. In a way, it is not the same election. That is what is so unfair about it. Nobody else’s second preference comes into play. As I say, there is an inherent difficulty in this system, which will be apparent only when we come to use it.

[Lord Deben]

Does the noble Lord agree, therefore, that there is an advantage in being a Monster Raving Loony Party voter? You automatically get two votes. They are two votes because the first was for the Monster Raving Loony Party and the second is for someone else, whereas every other voter has one vote because he does not change it at all. The argument stands constantly, which is why AV is such a silly system.

[Lord Rooker]

It is inherently difficult when you are asking people to go into the polling station and make their choices on a ballot paper, whether it is an optional system or not, without knowing what the outcome of the first choices will be. This is why the French have a two-round system. You can see what happens and adjust your vote accordingly. You do not get the chance to do that with this system; it is all or nothing when you put your preferences in. All I am saying is that there must be a fairer system than what is proposed. This will fall apart.

I will conclude on this. Examples have been given of the Scottish by-elections. We have not tried this in 600 or 650 constituencies in every part of the country under the full glare and analysis of every local anorak. I am not an anorak; I resent that term, I must say. This system has not been exposed to what will happen in 2015, assuming five years and assuming this system. That is where it is likely to come apart and there will be a backlash. I am trying to put some more fairness in the system. I made the point earlier about the fairness in the constituencies, the equal numbers. It has to be apparent to people that what is proposed is a fairer system—I might argue about the detail, but I agree with that. This puts a bit of fairness into the way the votes are counted under this proposed AV system. It would not be my first choice but it is genuinely trying to put fairness into the system. I am not saying it is perfect and it would be complicated for the counters. If it is done by computers fair enough; it is not a problem but it might be difficult to explain. I have to say though that it is not half as difficult to explain as the paragraphs the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, read out when explaining the Government’s views. I kept thinking, what will that sound like in a television studio?

I can honestly say that I will not be returning to this amendment but I may come back to some of those I did not move. I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.