Proportional Representation

Debate between Chris Williamson and Caroline Lucas

Monday 30th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. My Green colleagues were incredibly brave to make such selfless decisions for the good of the country rather than tribal political self-interest.

The Electoral Reform Society described the 2015 general election, in which a Government were elected on just 24% of the eligible vote, as “the most disproportionate” in electoral history. It further reported that in the election just gone more than 22 million votes —68%—were essentially wasted because first past the post takes no account of votes for the winning candidate over and above what they needed to win, or indeed of votes for losing candidates. In five constituencies 90% of votes made no difference to the outcome because they were cast for candidates who did not win, or cast for the winning candidate over and above what they needed to win. More than 90% of votes—a huge number.

[Chris Williamson]

Does the hon. Lady agree that democracy should be about outcomes, and that a fairer and just electoral system, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) talked about, would be more likely to deliver a fairer and just society, in which the forces of progress trump the forces of reaction? In my view, there is a majority in this country for progressive politics, but that is being frustrated by first past the post.

[Caroline Lucas]

I absolutely agree. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman pre-empts a little of what I am about to say. Exactly as he describes, first past the post does not deliver the best governance. I say that as someone who has been a Member of the European Parliament—elections to the European Parliament obviously take place under a PR system—where collaboration and cross-party working is normal. It is encouraged and welcomed, and people do it, on the basis that no single party has a monopoly on wisdom.

A winner-takes-all approach to elections promotes adversarial politics. It encourages each of the major parties to seek to defeat their opposition unequivocally, negating the need for post-election co-operation, and essentially not to take any real account of what voters wanted when they cast their votes. It also means that policy is likely to change dramatically when Governments change, with greater extremes and a greater impact on economic and environmental policy and on social justice and inclusion. Research has found that countries with PR systems outperform those with first-past-the-post systems when it comes to issues that require a longer term view and policy continuity. Environmental policy is obviously a key candidate for that; countries with proportional systems score significantly higher on Yale University’s environmental performance index.

I want to quote the former Labour MP and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. He observed that electoral reform is about not just functional outcomes—we have talked about that a lot—but values. PR is one way in which we can express our commitment to fairness, openness and equality in our society. I want to make the case that, under PR, we would be more likely to encourage more people to get out there and vote. It is very hard to persuade people to vote when they live in so-called safe seats and know that their vote will not make a significant difference. There is evidence out there that suggests that those countries that have PR see a higher turnout than those with first past the post.

We would also improve the chances of electing a Parliament that better reflects modern Britain. One of the consequences of safe seats is that it is harder for different groups to get themselves into a position to be able to win those seats. We know that still only 32% of MPs are women. There are 208, compared with 191 in 2015, but that is still shockingly bad. Women MPs are still outnumbered two to one by male MPs, and the UK is now just about 40th in the world when it comes to women’s parliamentary representation.

People of colour, disabled people, carers, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are still under-represented in Parliament. PR would make a difference to that, because under PR MPs cannot rely on just the votes of their tribe. To win the support of the majority of voters, they are forced to reach out across the party divide to the wider electorate—women, black and minority ethnic communities and so on—which hopefully means that those traditionally excluded groups would end up standing for election, and with a better chance of being elected.

Finally, I want to say a few things about tactics. The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) rightly said that getting PR into the Labour party manifesto is vital. He will not be surprised that I do not necessarily agree with his tactic for achieving that, but I certainly agree that we need to put pressure on the Labour party leadership. I am disappointed that we have not yet had a greater commitment to PR and voting reform from the Labour party leadership—perhaps this evening we will hear a change of mind—because we know that more than 200 Labour parliamentary candidates at the election backed PR, as well as a huge 76% of Labour voters, and indeed many Labour MPs in the Chamber have made incredibly powerful speeches.

What I want to say to the Labour leadership is this: it is selfish for them to continue championing a voting system just because it has traditionally handed them power. It is immoral when millions of people are disenfranchised as a result. No party can honestly claim to be for the many when it denies the many a meaningful vote. Robin Cook understood all of that when back in 2005 he said:

“Our objective, our slogan, should be to achieve an electoral system which puts our democracy in the hands of the many voters, not the few voters who happen to be key in marginal seats.”

Badger Culls (Assessment)

Debate between Chris Williamson and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Chris Williamson]

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will come on to that and explain why I am referring to the NFU. Despite public, parliamentary and scientific opinion, the NFU is clearly the only interest group to think that the badger cull is a good idea. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the Government seem to prefer the views of a pressure group that represents a small proportion of the overall farming industry to the views of science, the public and, overwhelmingly, the House of Commons.

To be clear, last year’s cull was a catastrophic failure. It failed to reach its target within the specified six-week timetable, so what did the Government do? They extended the timetable. The cull still failed to reach its target, which was for some 5,000 badgers to be killed, and it only managed to kill 1,861, making matters worse.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. Does he agree that one of the most dismal scenarios that we can have is that of the Government setting their face against the evidence? They not only do not look at the evidence, but try to close it down. On this occasion, for example, they got rid of the independent expert panel that might have been able to tell them whether their cull was being successful.

[Chris Williamson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right about that point, and I will be coming on to it.

As a consequence of not reaching the target of 5,000 badgers, the Government are likely to have made matters considerably worse because of perturbation, about which they were warned. DEFRA has not only failed in its own terms on effectiveness, but certainly failed on the test of humaneness as well. The independent expert panel, which the Government disbanded, as the hon. Lady said a moment ago, said about year one of the pilot badger cull:

“It is extremely likely that between 7.4% and 22.8% of badgers that were shot at were still alive after 5 min, and therefore at risk of experiencing marked pain. We are concerned at the potential for suffering that these figures imply.”

When it was clear that the cull was failing on every possible measure, the previous Secretary of State, unbelievably, blamed the badgers for “moving the goalposts”. In truth, the Government have moved the goalposts and Ministers are behaving like the three wise monkeys. The DEFRA independent expert panel confirmed last year that the cull was unsuccessful in terms of humaneness, as I have mentioned, and ineffective. The figures speak for themselves. The chief scientific adviser to Natural England also made negative comments about the cull, describing it as an “epic failure”.

Badger Cull

Debate between Chris Williamson and Caroline Lucas

Wednesday 11th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Chris Williamson]

My hon. Friend is right that the Government should look at evidence from elsewhere in the United Kingdom—and, indeed, listen to the expert scientific evidence.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He mentioned my parliamentary question, but does he also share my concern that the Government appear to have done so few post-mortems on badgers that we do not know what the results are? Does he further agree that, in light of the shambles around the current culling policy, there is a real danger that the Government will go down the route of gassing? Gassing is incredibly inhumane. The real answer, which is also cheaper and more effective, is to vaccinate badgers. That is what we should do.

[Chris Williamson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I will address her point a little later.

Energy Bill

Debate between Chris Williamson and Caroline Lucas

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I have much greater confidence in the wisdom of my constituents than sadly the hon. Gentleman appears to have in his. The bottom line is that people want information. They are being encouraged to switch between energy suppliers, but to do that they need well-presented information—I accept that it must be accessibly presented. I have no doubt that our constituents could perfectly well understand information on corporation tax paid and fuel mix, by which I mean the amount from fossil fuels and renewables.

Many other people want to speak, so I will end my comments there. I simply say to the Minister that the existing fuel mix disclosure obligation is not enough. We need more information, including trajectories, and it should cover more than one year and be properly comparable between different energy companies.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in support of amendments 87 (a), (b), (c), (d), (e) and (f). I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), the shadow Minister, for his kind remarks and for his support, in principle at least, for the sentiments expressed in my amendments.

I am pleased that the Minister said that the Government were committed to tackling fuel poverty, but actions speak louder than words, and if the Government are serious about it, they need to do a lot better than they have done so far and a lot better than the measures in the Bill. The 29% increase in excess winter deaths in this country is a scandal. As the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said, this is not the coldest climate or one of the poorest nations on the planet, yet people are dying because their homes are too cold. That cannot be acceptable. That is why we need to place on the Government a clear and unambiguous obligation to eradicate fuel poverty.

I am not the only one critical of the Government’s record. Their own fuel poverty advisory group issued a press release recently stating that the Government were failing the vulnerable as winter deaths were rising, and the chair of the group said:

“No one should be dying because they cannot afford to heat their home.”

He went on to say:

“Urgent action is needed now to prevent a repeat of this morally unforgiveable level of excess winter deaths.”

He is absolutely right that there is a moral imperative, and the Government seem to be failing dismally.

Indeed, not only are the Government failing, but in my view their response has been pretty shameful. They have changed the definition of fuel poverty, which at a stroke has taken a couple of million people out of that category. That reminds me a little of the 1980s, when the previous Conservative Government used to fiddle with the unemployment statistics in order to reduce the numbers. The Government have cut the funding to tackle fuel poverty and capitulated to the big six energy companies. There will be no energy price freeze under this Government, just £50 back, so energy bills will go up for everybody across the country—just not by as much as they might have otherwise. It is a bit like stealing someone’s shoes, giving them back the laces and then telling them to rejoice. On top of that, this Government have scrapped the Warm Front scheme, cut the winter fuel payment and mangled the energy company obligation.

Passing the Bill as it stands, without a clear and unambiguous commitment to eradicate fuel poverty, is a bit like passing a death sentence on thousands of people who are living in cold homes across our country. That is why I tabled the amendments that are before us: it is essential that we set meaningful targets for 2020 and 2030. I know it is a lot of money—bringing the housing stock up to energy performance certificate band B by 2030 for all low-income households is estimated to cost £47 billion—but the money, or a large proportion of it, is there. For example, something over £1 billion in the energy company obligation could be used for that purpose. Simply refocusing that ECO money would remove 70% of the fuel-poor from fuel poverty by 2020; I therefore think that should be done.

In addition, there are huge health benefits to tackling fuel poverty in bringing all low-income households up to EPC band B by 2030. The chief medical officer made it clear in her report that

“Every £1 spent keeping homes warm can save the NHS 42 pence in health costs.”

That has been estimated to be another £1 billion or so. It would be very sensible to reduce the costs on the national health and to allow that money to be refocused on paying for the required investment in tackling fuel poverty. If we can reduce the demand for energy, that could also reduce the cost of upgrading our energy infrastructure. We know already that £100 billion is being talked about to subsidise new nuclear energy in this country. We would not have to spend quite as much if we could manage down the demand for energy. There is also around £4 billion in carbon taxes that could be focused on tackling fuel poverty.

The other benefit that would flow from my proposal is that at least 130,000 jobs would be generated. Not only would that address a massive social need, given that there are more than 1 million unemployed young people in our country, but it would be a big boost to our economy. We also have our legal obligations, as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008. If we are serious about delivering on those obligations, it seems pretty clear that we need to do something about managing demand in our country and not simply look at creating additional capacity. If we are to reach that decarbonisation target, we must do more to reduce the demand for energy in the first place.

The Association for the Conservation of Energy estimates that investment in tackling cold homes would reduce household fuel bills by some £530 at today’s prices, but I am afraid that tackling fuel poverty and cold homes will not be achieved by the feeble efforts made by the Government so far.