Proportional Representation: General Elections

Cameron Thomas Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

It is an honour to sit on the fair elections all-party group, which is so well chaired by the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel). It is also an honour to take up this fight in this House with the Liberal Democrats for whom electoral reform has been a central tenet for decades.

In order to be here today, I had to resign my commission in the Royal Air Force where I had, for 23 years, defended our country and our interests overseas. However, I came to recognise that the most crucial way to defend our democracy was to do so here while backing proportional representation. Throughout the 2024 general election campaign, residents across Tewkesbury constituency frequently expressed their frustrations with an electoral system that was certain to condemn them to another five years of the same Conservative Member of Parliament whichever candidate they voted for. Tewkesbury had been represented by my predecessor for 27 years, and it was the view of many residents that Tewkesbury would never experience change because our broken electoral system would see this safe Conservative seat won by the Conservatives at an eighth consecutive election.

[Mr Holden]

Does not the hon. Gentleman’s presence in this House demonstrate that the system does work, and can deliver change in individual seats?

[Cameron Thomas]

No, for two reasons: the Liberal Democrats defied the odds, but there are many other smaller parties who are not adequately represented; and, as I will come to later, 58% of voters across the country did not get the MP they voted for, and that is true even in my constituency.

At the general election, Tewkesbury did see change, but only through the coming together of several unique circumstances, and despite first past the post. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman), I was loaned the trust of Labour, Green and Conservative supporters. The general election may have been won by Labour and returned Liberal Democrats in record numbers, but let us not delude ourselves: the country voted tactically in record numbers for whoever would remove the catastrophic, nepotistic and morally bankrupt Conservative Government of 2019.

July’s election brought the briefest respite before frustrations rose once again. This is the most disproportionate House of Commons in British history, with Labour MPs in 66% of seats but with the lowest vote share—some 34%—of any winning party since 1945, and 58% of UK voters did not get the MP they voted for. I have previously described first past the post as “barely democratic”, and these figures vindicate me.

Public apathy towards politics is reflected in a steady decline in general election turnouts since the 1950s, from over 80% to less than 60% in 2024. If we want to arrest this decline, people must feel that their vote matters. The only way to ensure that the next election returns a representative Parliament is to transition to a proportional representation electoral system.

I have occasionally been challenged by those who say that proportional representation would increasingly return hung Parliaments, and would lead to bickering and chaos, rather than functioning government. This challenge falters when those people are presented with the fact that the previous Government and their 80-seat majority were elected through first past the post. Never in the field of British politics was so little achieved by so many. They scrambled from controversy to controversy, fighting among themselves while undermining our institutions and allowing our public services to crumble.

Today, our friends in the United States are living with the inevitable result of their two-party system. Far-right populists have seized the previously conservative Republican party, neutered the media and dismantled many institutional safeguards. We must recognise that we face the same threat, as our Conservative party—the most successful election-winning machine on earth—continues its lurch to the right and brings fringe opinions into the mainstream. It can happen here, and we must have a fair electoral system to mitigate that.

Liberal Democrats were elected in record numbers in 2024 on a pledge to deliver proportional representation. Labour Members want proportional representation, and the public increasingly want proportional representation, so I say to the Government: let us come together and do something historic. Let us put aside our individual and party political interests for the many. Let us do the right thing. Let us change our country for the better and deliver proportional representation.

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[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Members for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) and for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) for securing a debate on this important topic.

I will endeavour not to repeat the remarks that have been made so eloquently by other Members, but I must start by also thanking the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) for referring to the question that I asked the Deputy Prime Minister a few weeks ago: that is perhaps as close to fame as I will get in this Chamber. He was right to observe that the Deputy Prime Minister requires persuasion on this point, although hopefully the eloquent and articulate contributions of Members on both sides of the House will help to achieve that and gain her support for the APPG’s request for a national commission on electoral reform.

For me, there are three key arguments in favour of proportional representation. First, there is currently a clear gap between how people vote and the outcome—namely the Parliament that they get, and thus the Government—and they do not necessarily feel invested in the result. Let me address the point made by the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst). The 2024 general election was, probably for the first time, quite a proportional one for the Liberal Democrats in its ratio of vote share to the number of MPs we have. Indeed, if I may be perfectly candid—at the risk of incurring the wrath of my colleagues—in parts of the country where we have more proportional systems, we do not always perform quite so well, so we are certainly not campaigning for this change on the basis of self-interest. It has, in fact, been a very long-standing Liberal Democrat and, indeed, Liberal commitment, and I will say more about that shortly.

Secondly, the current system is not engaging people. As has already been mentioned, turnouts are declining. In 2024, a record low of 58% voted for the two largest parties, Labour and Conservative, while one in three said that they had voted tactically for someone other than their preferred candidate or party member. Indeed, when many voters were telling me on the doorstep that they would be voting tactically for me, I pledged to commit myself wholly, so that I would not have to ask them to do that again in the future, and that is partly why I am here today.

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

My hon. Friend speaks of low turnout. I would be grateful for his opinion on whether a switch to an electoral system of proportional representation would be to the deficit of any particular parties in the House, and whether that is reflected in their turnout at this debate.

[Olly Glover]

There is certainly a clear variation in the representation of parties in the House for this debate. However, I agree with other colleagues who have said that while we do not necessarily know how people will vote if they are given a more proportional voting system, that is all the more reason for us to have one, so that people can feel they can vote with their hearts and not with their heads or, indeed, on the basis of a bar chart of whatever level of accuracy—[Interruption.] I should emphasise that mine are always spot on.

Thirdly, proportional representation would deliver less adversarial and more inclusive and discursive politics, which has the potential to improve policy, governance and tone—things which many people find frustrating in our current system. Parties would no longer be able to govern alone with as little as a third of the vote, and would have to do so with others. That is not a problem but a benefit of moving to a proportional system, because Governments would represent a majority of voters and would have to work together to represent the various platforms of the parties concerned.

The United Kingdom is highly anomalous in retaining first past the post. Very few other European countries do so. The hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) made a point about coalitions. I hope he is equally condemnatory of coalitions that Labour has had with other parties—for example, the coalition with the Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Parliament in the late 1990s, and, in Wales, the need to rely on minority support from either the Liberal Democrats or Plaid Cymru at various times.

As for those who scaremonger or are worried about the stability of countries with proportional representation, let us consider some examples from Europe. The hon. Member for Ilford South cited Belgium. Well, Belgium has a better GDP per capita than we do, and, if I may defend a nation that is so often mocked, the only real crime of the Belgians is preferring mayonnaise to ketchup on their chips, rather than their electoral system. Let us consider Norway, a highly prosperous nation that has made wise decisions such as creating a sovereign wealth fund from its precious oil resources, something from which this country would have benefited had we done the same. Switzerland, which also has proportional representation and regular coalition Governments, has the most punctual railway in Europe, and 100% of it is electrified compared to our derisory percentage somewhere in the 30s. Poland, a new democracy with 30 years of the fastest economic growth in Europe, also has proportional representation and coalition Governments. I put it to the House that we have very little to fear, and a great deal to gain.

As I said earlier, the Liberal Democrats and the Liberal party have called for fair votes for a century, and we continue to lead the campaign for fundamental reform of the electoral system. I will go where my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove did not, and say that it is wrong to suggest that preferential and proportional systems prevent individual accountability. The single transferable vote system is highly proportional and also, critically, retains voters’ ability to vote for individual candidates or not, if they choose. I agree with Conservative Members who have described that as an important principle. Reform is needed to address the need for fair representation in politics, and to improve the engagement of members of the public. Not to take action would further erode trust in politics and politicians, and would increase the risk of people voting for more extreme options next time out of frustration with the current system.

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[Rushanara Ali]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the importance of the constituency connection. Hon. Members have made important contributions about alternative systems, outlining their merits and limitations. Each of those systems has its pros and cons, and that has been strongly and powerfully debated by many hon. Members today. I respect those strongly held views on electoral reform.

I know that colleagues will be disappointed, and I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news when there has been a general love-in during the debate across the parties, bar some exceptions, but at this time the Government have no plans to change the voting system for elections to the House of Commons. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I am getting unlikely cheers; I am not used to being cheered by Conservative Members. As has been pointed out, the first-past-the-post system, while not perfect, provides for a direct relationship between Members of Parliament and their local constituency. A change would require a national conversation and referendum. The Government’s focus and No. 1 priority, having won the general election and secured a mandate, is to kick-start our economy, create the growth that is desperately needed, and improve living standards, our NHS and public services, to serve the people of our country.

Members have put their arguments across eloquently, and I respect those arguments. As others have pointed out, we had an opportunity to change the voting system in the 2011 referendum. Unfortunately for those who are proponents of such a change, that referendum was lost. The processes that underpin our elections are of paramount importance and changes cannot be made lightly; however, I stress that we are not averse to changes to, and innovation in, our democracy. We must continue to monitor all aspects of our electoral system, and ensure that it runs effectively and adapts to the modern challenges that we face as a democracy.

As we set out in our manifesto, we are seeking to make changes, including our commitment to extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds. We are continuing to assess the voter identification policy in order to address any inconsistencies. I am pleased that we were able to add veteran cards to the list of accepted documents last year; our veterans community will be able to use them to vote in polling stations this May. We are continuing to consider whether further improvements to policy can be made. I am conscious of the contributions of some hon. Members about the exclusion of legitimate voters. It is crucial that we ensure that people are not disenfranchised, while ensuring that there are not abuses of our system.

As I mentioned, the Liberal Democrat party, in coalition with the Conservative party, secured a referendum on AV in 2011, with considerable cross-party support from Labour Members. The proposal was rejected by 67.9% of votes. While I recognise the strength of feeling, I have made the Government’s position clear. Hon. Members asked whether the Government have any plans for a national commission on electoral reform. At present, we do—we do not. [Laughter.] That was not a Freudian slip. Some hon. Members asked about the London mayoral election and police and crime commissioners, following the changes in the Elections Act 2022. The Government currently have no plans to change the voting system for those polls. Like a number of policies, we will keep these matters under review.

A number of hon. Members suggested that the first-past-the-post system is contributing to a decrease in turnout, and pointed to the low turnout at the last election. It is on all of us to think carefully about the drivers of low turnout, which will be a range of factors. We all have a responsibility, as elected representatives, to work with our parties and communities to promote engagement, particularly among young people. We will work with colleagues to promote that democratic engagement, and ensure that young citizens are active citizens from an early age.

In order to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley enough time to wind up the debate, I will address just one other point. My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) spoke about foreign interference in relation to funding. Foreign money has no place in UK politics, and it is vital that we protect our democracy from those who seek to interfere in UK elections through illegitimate political donations. That is why we committed in our manifesto to strengthening the rules around donations to political parties. We will work with Members across the House to ensure that we protect the integrity of our democracy.

[Cameron Thomas]

I invite the Minister to join the APPG for fair elections. She will see that there is a very clear correspondence between first past the post and the lack of engagement over time.

[Rushanara Ali]

I thank the hon. Member for his invitation, and welcome him to send us information. He knows that I cannot be a member of the all-party group, but I recognise and commend its work. Having been a member of and chaired many all-party groups during my 14 years in opposition, I recognise the importance of their work.

I thank hon. Members across the House for their important contributions to the debate, expressing strongly and deeply held views about a really important subject: the future and nature of our democracy. Whichever side of the argument we are on, it is vital that we always maintain our commitment to working together to protect our democracy, and that we work tirelessly to strengthen our democracy.