Proportional Representation

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Reynolds]

We will come to that issue when I go through some of the commonly raised points that my right hon. Friend and I have discussed for some time.

The crucial point I want to make is that the additional member system used in Germany, Scotland and Wales avoids the vast electoral deserts where people in a part of a country, whether a county or a region, get no plurality of representation despite casting votes for a range of political parties. Front Benchers are called to respond to debates in Westminster Hall. I remember responding to a debate on travel in the south-west of England when I was shadow rail Minister. There were 20 Conservative MPs on the Government Benches and just me on the Opposition Benches to respond. Members would get up and say, “Only the Opposition Front Bencher is here,” but if we look at the election results, we see that even in the south-west more people voted against the Conservative party than for it. Clearly it was the biggest party, but the system delivered 100% representation for a party that was not even getting a majority of the vote in the region. That cannot be right.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)]

It is an excellent system.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

It is excellent if we view this simply as a partisan issue where the only thing that matters is our side winning, but as democrats we have to look at this from the point of view of what the public put forward, and we have to respond to that public demand. If we are not doing that, we have to ask ourselves what the purpose of elections is to begin with. It cannot just be about maximising individual party advantage and finding a system that gets us to that point. That is not good enough, and it is not what democratic systems are based on.

I will conclude, because we have such a strong turnout in the Chamber. I just want to go through some of the commonly held views, such as those shown in the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) and the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay. It is true that lists are suboptimal—there is no doubt about that—but what I find hypocritical is the fact that many of the people who cite lists as an example of undue party advantage know full well that first past the post is open to manipulation. It has always been the case in every party represented here that favoured sons and daughters have been parachuted into constituencies or selection processes have been manipulated. It is simply not true that that can be transferred to any system that has a list involved.

With regard to minority parties, I think that we should teach better history in schools. As the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay was speaking, I thought, “Well, right now things are dependent on the DUP.” We had the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition before that. John Major was dependent on the Ulster Unionists. We had the Callaghan Government’s Lib-Lab pact. We had minority Governments and coalitions before the war. We had the situation with the Irish nationalists. The history of this country is not one of first past the post delivering clear results. In fact, we have had a situation quite recently in which a proportional system has delivered a majority Government in Scotland while first past the post has delivered a hung Parliament in the United Kingdom, so we need to look more closely at the evidence.

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[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. The Government welcome this debate on the merits and drawbacks of adopting proportional representation and the opportunity to address the important issues raised by hon. Members. It is fantastic to see such a strong turnout in Westminster Hall for this three-hour debate.

Members have made their arguments eloquently, and we have had a good-natured and high-quality debate that has shown us at our best. Clearly, how we select our representatives in Parliament is of fundamental importance, and Members rightly have strong views on the merits and disadvantages of various voting systems that have sometimes, as we have seen, gone beyond the traditional confines of party politics. The choice of voting system is central to our democracy, which is why such debates are important. I thank the 103,000 petitioners who triggered the debate, as well as the Petitions Committee and its representative, my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), for giving us the opportunity to have it.

The Government are committed above all to ensuring that the laws governing our elections are clear and generate the greatest degree of confidence. Under the first-past-the-post system, electors select their preferred candidate for their constituency. The candidate with the largest number of votes wins, and the party with the largest number of elected candidates may form a Government. The electorate understand well how their representatives in Parliament are selected under the first-past-the-post system, and it makes it easier for electoral administrators to deliver an election accurately and quickly. The Government therefore do not support proportional representation, as we consider it to be more complicated without delivering the same benefits as first past the post.

[Alison Thewliss]

The Minister might not be aware that using the single transferable vote system for local government in Scotland allows us to use electronic counting. Has he attended any electronic counts in Scotland to see how simple and well-operated they are?

[Chris Skidmore]

Devolved legislatures have the ability to choose various voting systems; the Government provided those freedoms in the past. I have not attended an electronic count, but I understand that there have been a number of difficulties running them in Scotland. I also understand that we have given Wales the freedom to consider electronic voting in future, and I look forward to seeing what comes from the pilots there.

As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) mentioned, we committed in our manifesto not only to retain first past the post for parliamentary elections but to extend it to elections for police and crime commissioners and Mayors. In line with that, the Government have no plans to change the voting system for elections to the House of Commons. We will seek to legislate on that matter—

[Wera Hobhouse]

The Conservative party did not win a majority, so one could turn the argument round and say that therefore, the majority do not support continuing with first past the post and what the Conservatives propose in their manifesto.

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[Chris Skidmore]

We have a system of representative democracy. The largest party that forms a Government can then implement its manifesto. That is clearly in line with historical precedent. We will seek to legislate on the matter and meet our manifesto commitments when legislative time allows.

I turn to the specifics of why the Government believe that retaining first past the post is the best system for the United Kingdom. The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) mentioned the administration of elections and the burdens on staff. Electoral systems used to achieve proportional representation are often more complex than a first-past-the-post system. Systems such as the single transferable vote require ballots to be counted multiple times in order to allocate seats, which lengthens the duration of the count and therefore the time and effort taken to determine a result.

Conversely, first past the post entails a relatively simple count that, hopefully, need only be conducted once, except where the margin between candidates is slim, which minimises the pressure on the administrative process and the possibility of error. Furthermore, the simplicity of the count means that a result is produced much more quickly, normally during the night following the poll, with an overall result early the next day; long may the election night count and the declaration of results continue. A timely result is in the interests of all parties and the country as a whole.

The first-past-the-post system is well established in the United Kingdom and easy for the electorate to understand. Consequently, elections using first past the post produce fewer rejected ballot papers than other systems, including proportional representation systems such as STV. According to the Electoral Commission, the use of the single transferable vote in the Scottish council elections led to 37,492 ballots being rejected, or 1.95%, a proportion of total ballots cast nearly six times higher than under first past the post in the 2015 general election, in which only 0.33% of ballots were rejected. In the 2016 election of the police and crime commissioner for England and Wales, a remarkable 311,000 ballots were rejected, out of a turnout of 8.8 million. That is 3.4%. In the same year, there were just 25,000 spoiled ballot papers in the EU referendum.

[Martin Whitfield]

Is that not an argument for more funding for education, rather than for changing the system?

[Chris Skidmore]

No. I believe that the simplest system—putting a cross in a box and having one Member and one vote—is the first-past-the-post system. That is why the Government want to legislate to return to that system, so that we have a simple system that is well understood across all elections. The Government have serious concerns that proportional representation voting systems are less likely to be understood and followed correctly by members of the public, increasing the likelihood that ballot papers will be completed incorrectly.

[Caroline Lucas]

Does the Minister really think that the population of Britain is significantly less intelligent than the population of Germany, France, Denmark and Finland—all the countries that use proportional representation? Is he saying that, with education, people could not work out how to use that system? That is a pretty big indictment.

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[Chris Skidmore]

I am not saying that at all. If there is any indictment, it is on a system that leads to a large number of rejected ballot papers. The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood mentioned the issue of voter engagement and ensuring that people vote. There is a massive discrepancy between the systems when it comes to turnout and people filling out a correct ballot. The first-past-the-post system works, so why do we need to change it? Proportional representation disenfranchises people who participate and then find out that their ballots were rejected—or they do not even find out. The system works against them and their democratic right.

[Cat Smith]

The Minister makes the point that the elections for the police and crime commissioners had a higher proportion of spoilt ballot papers than a general election. If that is the case, perhaps the public are sending a message that they do not want to elect police and crime commissioners in the first place?

[Chris Skidmore]

That may be the hon. Lady’s view, but the Government’s view is that 311,000 spoilt ballot papers are a problem—we are looking at how the transfer of votes took place and a misnumbering in that system. The Electoral Commission also recognises that problem.

High numbers of incorrectly completed ballot papers put pressure on the administrative process at the count. If a voter’s preference is unclear, administrators must adjudicate on whether the ballot paper can be assigned to a candidate or rejected. That increases the burden on administrators by prolonging the count and requiring some ballots to be counted twice, or multiple times. For those reasons, the Government support the continued use of the first-past-the-post system because it retains the confidence of the electorate, results in the lowest level of errors in ballot paper completion and reduces pressure on the administrative process of adjudicating unclear ballots.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) mentioned the crucial constituency link, which my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) also reflected on, along with other hon. Members with varying views. I personally believe that that link with individual Members of Parliament who represent electors in a defined constituency is a core feature of our parliamentary democracy with the first-past-the-post system. Constituents have a distinct parliamentary representative who is directly accountable to them. The manner of that representation may be less obvious when someone is elected under a proportional representation system or a list system that uses larger multi-Member constituencies. Although hon. Members have different views, that was brought up countless times on the doorstep at the AV referendum.

In the United Kingdom, the Government conducted a referendum on whether the voting system to elect Members of Parliament should be changed from first past the post.

[Stephen Twigg]

I am bemused by the Minister’s argument. The AV system would retain single Member constituencies represented by a single Member of Parliament. What is the relevance of the argument about the constituency link?

[Chris Skidmore]

In contrast to AV or other proportional forms, the constituency link with first past the post is that a clearly defined person in that constituency has won with the plurality of votes—actually, the same number of votes.

I well remember a cross-party debate on this subject with the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), as he is now, and Billy Bragg in Bristol City Council’s Council House. The result of the AV referendum was that 13 million people—more than two-thirds of people who voted—voted in favour of retaining first past the post. The Government believe it would be hard to justify ignoring that democratic verdict in the referendum or to make the case for a further referendum on more ambitious reform such as PR when the more modest alternative vote proposal was defeated so resoundingly.

The referendum was an overwhelming vote for the status quo of first past the post. The Government are committed to first past the post and the clear, overriding principle of one person, one vote. When it comes to the vote, why should one person’s vote be worth three, four, five or six times more than another person’s? Every vote is equal, so every vote should be counted equally. That is why we believe in the first-past-the-post system as the fairest and clearest mechanism by which to elect this democratically elected Chamber.