Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Daniel Kawczynski and John Robertson

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Robertson]

That is the problem that I will discuss in my speech. I would hazard a guess that I have a lot more problems in my constituency than the hon. Gentleman does in his, even though it probably has the best MP it could possibly have. The fact is that we are disadvantaging the disadvantaged. The poll tax tried to do the same; Margaret Thatcher introduced it deliberately to get people off the electoral roll, so that people would not vote Labour. That was tried; it was run in Scotland before anywhere else, but—the hon. Gentleman may not know this—the Conservatives have only one Member of Parliament north of the border. After the next election, there will be one Liberal Member of Parliament there. Everybody will complain that all those who come to the House from north of the border are either Labour or from the Scottish National party, but it will be the Conservative and Liberal parties who brought that about. They are the ones who have made sure that their parties are not electable.

The Conservatives and Liberals do not even listen to their parties north of the border. The Liberal party will do its best to try to make sure that it gets seats, but I would not mind betting that the people around Inverness will go back to Labour; they used to have a good Labour Member of Parliament, and will return another Labour Member.

It will come as no surprise to everybody who knows me that I will not be voting for AV. However, I will not be able to campaign on the issue, because I will be too busy campaigning in the Scottish elections. Not only is there a first-past-the-post side to them, but there is a list system, too. There are now two systems that I need to promote and try to explain to the people of Scotland and, in particular, of my constituency, so that they know how they should vote and how they can get the best returns for a Labour candidate. Now, the Government are saying that we have to have a vote on AV as well; we have to have a referendum.

The issue is not that there is confusion in filling in ballot papers, although 100,000-odd people were disfranchised in the last Scottish election because two questions were put on the one ballot paper, as has been mentioned. That does not work; it confuses people when there are two different votes on one ballot paper, to such an extent that we have managed to ensure that there will be two ballot papers.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

rose—

[John Robertson]

I give way to my hon. Friend; he is my hon. Friend on this subject.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there should be one voting system for all elections in the United Kingdom, and that that should be first past the post?

[John Robertson]

The hon. Gentleman is right. If we are to introduce PR, let us have the same voting system for every form of election. Let us have the debate on whether PR or first past the post is the way to go. I am happy to have that argument, but I cannot do that north of the border because the Scottish elections take place at the same time, and I want to ensure that the Labour party is returned in Holyrood. I cannot do that if I am arguing about what sort of system we will have.

The hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), who is no longer in his place, mentioned how many letters he had received on AV and produced a blank piece of paper. I agree with that. I cannot remember receiving one letter about the voting system. Other than the people in the House, nobody cares. One can tell from the number of people in the Press Gallery how much they care: they are not here. The Deputy Prime Minister is not present. He could not even wait until the first Opposition Back Bencher stood up to speak before he left. What chance is there of a proper debate if the Member proposing it from the Dispatch Box is not here to listen to the arguments? In effect, we are talking to ourselves, and I hope we are all enjoying the speech. Not long to go.

The most important thing to the people of Glasgow North West is to get an elected representative who they know is theirs. We have heard an argument for changing parliamentary boundaries, but that is not possible. How can people get to know their own constituency, the area represented by their Member of Parliament, how do they get to know that Member of Parliament, and how does the Member build a rapport with constituents and know that he is representing them in the way that they want him to?

We have already been through that in Scotland. We lost 13 seats for the 2005 elections, and constituencies changed. I am fortunate to have been a Member of Parliament since 2000. It was very difficult to get used to the new part of my constituency, which was previously represented by George Galloway. It was different then because he sought more publicity than I do. It was important for me to get out and about in that area, but because of the deprivation in my own area, I had to spend as much time as possible there. As has been pointed out, people’s expectations of their Member of Parliament are greater than 10 years ago.

We on the Labour Benches are not fooled. We know what the Bill is all about. I call on all Members to join us in the Lobby and vote against it.