Scotland Bill

Debate between Brian H. Donohoe and Mark Lazarowicz

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Donohoe]

I think that we are wandering into maths rather than arithmetic, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Of course, that would be a saving to the public purse, which is very important. Perhaps one could call it a Freudian slip. I have come to the conclusion that he is right and that the number should indeed be 117, and not 119 as I suggested.

Moving swiftly on—

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Donohoe]

I do not think I am going to be allowed to move on swiftly.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Surely with the passage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, which will reduce the number of parliamentary constituencies, the correct figure would in fact be 103.

[Mr Donohoe]

If the hon. Gentleman intervenes again to give me some understanding of that point, I might be able to accede to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Donohoe]

My hon. Friend may not have slept last night, but what does she think of the fact that I have had to come back here to continue this debate? I will come back to her point later.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I disagree with much of what my hon. Friend said yesterday and today, but I concede his point on the role of list MSPs. One list MSP in my area just produced her annual report. By some amazing coincidence, almost every single example of her local work over the last year happens to be from the constituency where she is standing as a constituency candidate.

[Mr Donohoe]

On the basis of conversations with other hon. Members, there is universal agreement that something is fundamentally wrong with that aspect of list Members. Even a previous Presiding Officer has made that point on numerous occasions in the Scottish Parliament. That is a pertinent issue and it must be given serious consideration, which is why I have proposed new clause 2, which would withdraw funding. Withdrawing the funding available to added list Members would lead to significant savings for the Scottish Parliament. If my arithmetic is correct, there are 56 added list MSPs, given that 73 MSPs are elected for constituencies—I believe my figures are right on this occasion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I am sure that you will be pleased to hear that I intend to address the new clause, Mr Hoyle.

I want to put the case against what my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe) has proposed, and to put the case for a system of proportional representation for the Scottish Parliament. The current system should be retained. We could have an interesting academic argument about whether to have the additional Member system or a different form of PR, but AMS is the proportional system that we have now in the Scottish Parliament, and I want to defend that system. Overall, it has worked well, and it should be retained in the interests of Scotland.

The first argument in favour of that system—or, indeed, any system of PR for the Scottish Parliament—is about fairness. I agree with the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) on that. Some people seem to take the view that fairness is a luxury for politicians. I do not accept that—fairness is something that we should all be concerned about. Any system in which the seats that one party wins can be grossly disproportionate to the votes that it gets is an unfair system. We have seen some of those distorting effects at the UK level, but at the Scottish level the first-past-the-post system could have much more disproportionate effects, precisely because of the multi-party system in Scotland. We have four parties in Scotland which, according to the opinion polls, get 6% or more of the vote—if we were to add the Lib Dems and their 5%, we would have a five-party system. With that breakdown between the parties, it would be quite feasible for a party with just 30% of the vote to get an absolute majority in the Scottish Parliament. Whatever our perspective might be, that cannot be justified or defended.

Some of my right hon. and hon. Friends take the view that because—as they believe—Labour tends to gain under that disproportionate system, we should support first past the post against any form of proportional representation. However, I do not accept that first past the post always benefits the Labour party. I am old enough to remember the 18 years of Conservative Government, when the Conservatives, never with the majority of the votes cast, nevertheless had a majority of the seats in Westminster, and sometimes a very large majority, so Labour does not always gain from the first-past-the-post system.

It would also be dangerous for my Labour colleagues or anyone else to assume that first past the post would always benefit Labour in Scotland. As the Liberal Democrats have discovered, no party can assume that its recent levels of support will be maintained indefinitely. Parties go up and down, and we cannot necessarily assume that if the Scottish Parliament had first past the post but no regional list system, the constituency votes in the last parliamentary elections would have been the same, because people might have chosen to vote differently if they had had only one vote instead of two. We cannot assume that Labour would always win an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament under first past the post.

[Mr Donohoe]

Does my hon. Friend understand that the last time the Liberals were in power, which was in 1921, they were opposed to any form of proportional representation and voted in this place for the system that we have today?

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Indeed. One thing that my hon. Friend and I share on this issue is consistency. He has been consistent in his opposition to PR; I have been consistent in my support for it, so at least we share something in this debate, unlike the Liberal Democrats.

No party can assume that it knows what the vote will be in five, 10, 15 or 20 years’ time, but the attraction—as my hon. Friends and others see it—of first past the post might diminish dramatically if, let us say, the Scottish National party at some stage got 35% of the votes in the Scottish parliamentary elections under that system. That could quite easily give it an absolute majority of seats, which no doubt the SNP would claim as a mandate for independence. Those who suggest that first past the post will always benefit Labour, or any other party, are making a serious mistake if they maintain that position.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Brian H. Donohoe and Mark Lazarowicz

Monday 14th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Donohoe]

New clauses 1 and 2 relate to regional Members of the Scottish Parliament, who were introduced in an irksome move and have been with us for a long time—since the outset of the Scottish Parliament.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

My hon. Friend describes the provisions for a system of proportional representation as irksome. How many representations have been received by Government or anybody else that call for a change to the voting system for the Scottish Parliament, apart from those of my hon. Friend and a few of our colleagues?

[Mr Donohoe]

Since I have been in a position to see this matter at first hand, I have received many representations over the years from constituents who have concerns about the system, as I am sure has my hon. Friend. As a result of my tabling the new clauses, a number of individuals have written to me to tell me that I was spot on in making this argument. Therefore, there have been a number of representations. Not many people have come to me and argued for the continuation of the crazy system that is in being. I will expand on that point later in my speech.

Never in the history of politics has a political party given so much power to its opponents as in the Scotland Act 1998. Since then, all sorts of people have come on to the scene, cherry-picked within the constituencies and caused mayhem. That is why I have tabled the new clauses. Obviously, we must look at this whole question. We must go back to the first election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. In my constituency, there was the crazy situation in which not only was the person who came second under first past the post elected to the Scottish Parliament through the pool for constituency Members, but the people who came third and the fourth. As my constituents tell me, something is fundamentally wrong when such a system is allowed to continue. That is the crux of my argument this evening.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Donohoe]

I am not sure that I want to wander down that road, because the hon. Lady is well aware that I am the joint chairman of the all-party group for the promotion of first past the post, and also the secretary of the relevant group in the Labour ranks. Indeed, last week I asked the Prime Minister a question about the matter and he agreed with me, which is a first. Members all know where I stand and where the campaign on first past the post is going.

Let us examine the situation as it stands. If I go to a health board meeting in Ayrshire, how many MSPs can turn up? Some 24 can turn up and be part of the debate. That is not a problem in itself, but some of those list Members represent areas outside Ayrshire. There is therefore immense conflict when decisions are taken about where health services for them and their constituents should be. I have seen that at first hand on at least a dozen occasions. As a consequence, I no longer go to those meetings. Instead, I sensibly insist on the health board meeting the MPs and constituency MSPs alone, instead of the nonsense of the cherry-picking that was and is going on among list Members north of the border.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

My hon. Friend clearly has strong views. I must say that in the area that I represent, where there are Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green, Labour and independent list MSPs, I do not have the problems that he seems to encounter. Is not the real difficulty with his proposal that it would lead to an end to the proportional system for the Scottish Parliament? Is that not what it is really about? Would it not be undemocratic and wrong if Labour, the SNP or any other party got a majority of seats with 30% of the vote?

[Mr Donohoe]

I am sure my hon. Friend has examined my two new clauses, which are self-supporting. It is correct that in the first instance I want to bring back coterminous boundaries for all MSPs, so that there is a semblance of an organisation that can be supported by all parties in this place and elsewhere. However, the second point that I want drive home is as important as the first. I do not believe that list Members should be allowed, under any circumstances, to pick up the funds that are currently available to them to represent—or not represent—what they perceive to be their constituents.

That brings me neatly to list MSPs themselves. On a substantial number of occasions, the list Member has cherry-picked, to the detriment of the possibility of inward investment by companies of some size into my constituency—I take exception to that more than anything. On the basis of what they perceived to be environmental issues, they have come in and destroyed any possibility of a company coming into my constituency. That is wrong, and there must be accountability, but the list Member is not accountable to constituents as I am to mine. That must be fundamentally wrong. No hon. Member can tell me whether the list Members have any accountability within the structures of their political parties. That is the problem. There is no accountability whatever for list Members—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) want to intervene?