Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Brian H. Donohoe Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Before turning to the Bill, I am aware that since we last met, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) has announced that he will be stepping back from front-line politics when the new leader of the Labour party is finally elected. I am sure that I speak on behalf of everybody when I say that I wish him, in advance, a happy semi-retirement on the Back Benches. I hope that he agrees that Second Reading of this Bill and Second Reading of the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill next week is a fitting finale or curtain call for him, given his lifelong interest and expertise in constitutional matters, which we hope he will continue to draw upon from the Back Benches.

In the run-up to the election in May, all the major parties pledged to reform politics. Some of the measures proposed were quite different from this one and others strikingly similar, but there was consensus that this Parliament has a duty to restore trust to the institution of Parliament. So the people who put us here must now see us taking the action needed to do that, ensuring that politics is transparent, making certain that we can all be held to account, and ultimately, demonstrating to them that we understand that they are in charge. This Bill is a major step towards achieving that, because it is about the legitimacy of this House and restoring people’s faith in how they elect their MPs.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

If I could make a little headway, I will of course give way.

The coalition has agreed a full, five-year programme of various political reforms, including fixed-term Parliaments, reform of the other place, action to clean up party funding and a new power of recall, but unless we can give people confidence in the fundamentals—in how they choose their Westminster representatives—that programme will fall short. Parliamentary elections are the foundation of our democracy, and it is vital to our political system as a whole that they are considered to be legitimate and fair. That is what the Bill seeks to deliver.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Donohoe]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister answer a simple question? Does he see any party political advantage in the proposal on AV?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is impossible to predict what effect a new electoral system will have—[Interruption.] Well, many people have tried and they have come up with conflicting views—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stuart Bell (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski). Having listened to what happened in that parliamentary Conservative party meeting—a meeting of the 1922 committee, which was formed on the breakdown of a coalition Government way back in 1922—and heard that the deal breaker was a referendum on the alternative vote, I wonder why the Conservatives made a deal at all. They were eight short of an overall majority. They could have easily formed a Government and would have had a big majority in the House over other parties, although not an overall majority. They could have easily formed a Government and taken to the country the question of how we deal with the deficit. That the Conservative party should sell itself to the 1922 committee by going back to 1922, when the Conservatives pulled out and the coalition failed, and then go back into a coalition on that premise—a premise that is so false and empty, even from the Liberal party, which fought for a different system in the general election—is a wonder to behold.

We are now in the odd situation where we have one part of the Bill, which should be one Bill, on whether there should be a referendum on the alternative vote, and another on changing the distribution of seats.

[Mr Donohoe]

Was my hon. Friend aware that in the ’20s, the Liberal party in government—would you believe?—was opposed to any form of proportional representation?

[Sir Stuart Bell]

Times have changed since 1922, but it is a mystery to behold how we are in the current situation.

As one hon. Member has said, 72 Members wish to speak this evening. Early on in the debate, the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) made a remarkable and impassioned speech, saying that we should at least be thankful for small mercies. The small mercy was that the Bill is not a Bill for full-blown proportional representation. Tomorrow he should read the comments of the Deputy Prime Minister—who slipped it in very nicely—when he said that the Bill was a minimum requirement. The Government are not out of the woods on proportional representation, and someone should ask him—and we will ask in Committee—whether the Bill is the first stage on the way to proportional representation or an endgame.