Proportional Representation: General Elections Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateGagan Mohindra
Main Page: Gagan Mohindra (Conservative - South West Hertfordshire)Department Debates - View all Gagan Mohindra's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(4 weeks, 1 day ago)
Commons ChamberI thank the hon. Members who secured this important debate. I have been debating on this subject outside the House for, unbelievably, nearly 40 years, so I have had some time to assemble my thoughts on it. During that time, I have often heard people argue for or against proportional representation or first past the post based on the immediate advantage for their political party. I urge against such an approach to questions of democracy and electoral systems. One benefit of engaging in this debate for so long is that I have been able to see the political cycle change over time; an electoral system that might benefit a party at one point may work to its disadvantage later. The party that gets a massive boost in seats from first past the post in one election may get a disproportionate kicking from the electorate under another system. The volatility of the modern electorate makes that particularly pertinent.
The core bedrock of support for both major parties is a far smaller group of voters than it ever used to be, and demographic and political change is accelerating that. No party—mine included—should think that the current coalition of voters that it has assembled is here to stay, and that it should design its preferred electoral system around maximising the number of seats that that coalition of voters can win.
What is the hon. Member’s view on his Government’s proposal to reduce the voting age to 16, given that we were all elected by voters aged 18 and above?
I think that is a different subject to the one we are debating. If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will proceed on the subject of proportional representation.
We do not know how voters would behave if they were confronted with a different voting system. We cannot say that because Labour got 34% of the vote in 2024 under first past the post, it would therefore have got 34% if the 2024 election had been run under a proportional representation system. Voters change their behaviour to fit the voting system. There might also be new parties that would grow under a different voting system.
With tactical voting in its current form, we do not know how many Labour-identifying voters back other parties for tactical reasons in particular seats—the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) mentioned voters who had spoken to her about doing so. We do not know how many supporters of other parties voted Labour for tactical reasons, or what the net impact of unwinding those factors might be on each party.
I do share my hon. Friend’s viewpoint, and I will come to that later in my remarks. We do not know how much turnout would increase in areas where it is now depressed because the outcome under first past the post appears to be a foregone conclusion. My hon. Friend anticipated the next thing I was going to say.
The current fracturing of the party system, with five parties getting more than 5% of the vote—the number is higher in Scotland and Wales—is probably here to stay. That means there are more marginal seats, more three or even four-cornered fights for marginal seats and more Members of Parliament elected on relatively low vote shares by historical standards. Ironically, that improves the range of viable choices for voters in many seats, and their chances of influencing the result in a meaningful way, because there are fewer safe seats. However, it is trying to pour a multi-party system into an electoral system designed for two parties, so it inevitably leads to more and more disproportional results, where the relationship between vote share and number of seats completely breaks down.
For instance, as has been mentioned, the Liberal Democrats got 72 MPs despite receiving more than half a million fewer votes than Reform, which got only five MPs. I do not blame the Liberal Democrats or my party for seeking to maximise seats rather than votes—that is the game we are supposed to be playing with our current system—but it is difficult to go out to the public and objectively defend such surreal disproportionality. It increases public cynicism about their ability to influence politics.
My motivation for supporting a move to a more proportional voting system is therefore not that I think it will provide an immediate or long-term advantage to the party that I have dedicated my life to campaigning for, and I hope that Members of other parties would not be motivated by assuming that proportional representation will accrue immediate narrow party advantage at Labour’s expense. On the contrary, as a social democrat, my approach to any critical question is based on the core principles of social justice, democracy and equality. That leads me to support a more proportional voting system, just as it leads me to egalitarian and redistributive answers to social and economic policy questions.
We should design an electoral system based not on whether it benefits us as individual politicians or our own parties at a specific moment, but on whether it delivers just and equitable outcomes that can logically be defended. In particular, we should apply the philosopher John Rawls’ theory of justice and try to measure the impact of each electoral system on the most under-represented party and the most under-represented voter, and argue for a system that treats parties and voters as fairly and equitably as possible and that gives voters as equal influence as possible over who represents them and who governs the country.
The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time and has made some valid points, although I may not agree with all of them. Does he believe that to ensure the electorate is fully represented, we need to go to the Australian model of forcing all constituents to go to the ballot box?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention. I have looked at compulsory voting, which was advocated at one point by Lord Watson of Wyre Forest. I am open to the suggestion, but basically that is about forcing people to vote when we should be trying to enthuse them to vote through both how we do politics and how the system works.
All voters should have equal value wherever they live in the UK, but first past the post condemns millions of voters to living in electoral deserts where just one party dominates all Commons representation. There is no region or nation where that system reflects the diversity of the votes cast, and between different regions and nations it can benefit different parties. We need a system that sends to this place a mix of MPs from each region and nation who represent their political diversity and balance. First past the post privileges and makes powerful a relatively small number of swing voters in a small number of marginal seats, while giving little political power to the majority of voters in safer seats. That distorts our political process. Policies, campaign spending, where politicians visit, where activists travel to, messaging and advertising are all focused on swing voters in marginal seats, while elections in some safe seats can be quiet affairs.
When parties are in opposition, first past the post makes them narrower based. In recent Parliaments when Labour was down to a small parliamentary party, it often appeared to be a sectional voice for big cities and university towns, which was unhealthy, even though we had millions of votes but few MPs in demographically different parts of the country. Now, the Conservative parliamentary party may appear to be dominated by rural interests as its votes in urban areas delivered few MPs. Both situations are unhealthy.
Support for proportional representation is now the consensus position at a grassroots level in the Labour party: polling says that 83% of grassroots members support it, and the vast majority of constituency Labour party members backed it when our annual conference voted in favour of electoral reform. In fact, I think it is the topic on which the largest number of local Labour parties has ever submitted motions.
Mixed Member systems used in places such as Germany and New Zealand prove that the undoubted merits of the constituency system, such as having a voice and champion for a specific geographical area in Parliament and giving voters greater access to us as local representatives, can be combined with a proportional element to produce stable and effective Governments—and, I would say, Governments who pursue the social democratic values that my party stands for. I hope that it will not be too long before the Labour Government align their stance on our voting systems with our guiding values of equality and democracy.
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for intervening. I think her question was probably about how PR would deliver accountability, not how first past the post would deliver accountability. I very much agree that accountability and the constituency link are really important. I am glad that the debate has not nerded out excessively on which is our favourite form of PR, but there are many systems operating in the different nations of the United Kingdom that deliver that constituency link. I very much agree that that is an important part of our democracy.
PR provides a clear alternative to what we are currently doing. It ensures that seats broadly match votes, that every voter has a meaningful say and that Governments represent the majority of the electorate. We already have proportional representation in the UK, just not here in Westminster. In Scotland’s Parliament, 93% of voters have at least one representative they voted for, while in Westminster that figure stands at just 42% according to the Electoral Reform Society. PR in different forms is already used in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as in the vast majority of democracies worldwide, so why not here? Evidence shows that PR leads to higher voter turnout, more representative Governments and more stable policymaking.
For a long time, the question of electoral reform has been viewed as an abstract debate—indeed, with people arguing over d’Hondt versus single transferrable vote—rather than one that is integral to democratic legitimacy. It is neither sustainable nor responsible to continue governing under a system where a party can form a large majority on barely a third of the vote. It is reckless to maintain an electoral model that so consistently produces such wildly disproportionate groups of MPs and leaves millions of voters feeling ignored. If these trends are allowed to continue, it is not difficult to see how turnout will fall further, results will become even more distorted and political instability will grow.
I am a Lib Dem—I outed myself earlier—and I enjoy speaking with and listening to voters. I am also a fan of a bar chart on my leaflets.
I am delighted to report that my bar charts have been measured and are accurate to the millimetre.
I thank the hon. Member. The other thing I would like to say is that when we are over-reliant on statistics, it says something. I will come on to statistics as well, if I am allowed.
I have had the privilege of living in my constituency for half a century—more than 50 years. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities that Ilford has given to me. A staunch Conservative constituency has now become a staunch Labour constituency, although, over the years, I have seen many MPs from both parties. Of course, that is how the democratic process works.
Like hon. Members across the Chamber, I am devoted to my constituency. Each and every day, I serve my neighbours, fighting for investment in Ilford, representing their views and ensuring that I speak up on the issues that matter most to all of them. Only last week, in this Chamber, I raised the issue of democratic backsliding and human rights in Pakistan, a subject that is incredibly important to many of my neighbours, who have friends and families in the region.
I am accountable to the people of Ilford South, and I take my role and my relationship with my constituents seriously. Under a PR voting system, the personal and local links that I so value with my constituents would be lost. A PR system would make it harder for local concerns to be represented and addressed. It would take politicians away from our communities and hollow out the vital relationships between representative and constituent. The British Academy’s analysis of closed PR systems suggests that under PR, politicians are not beholden to their constituents—the tie is loosened and accountability is degraded.
Like the hon. Gentleman, I come from a local government background. Does he agree that when voting for a councillor, as he was, constituents are more likely to vote for individuals than parties and to do so based on the effectiveness of that individual rather than just the party branding?
I think it is about being pragmatic in our response, being pragmatic with our residents, and making the right decisions.
I associate myself with the comments of many other hon. Members today, and thank the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) for introducing the debate.
This debate comes at a crucial time. We are in a world characterised by democratic decline and falling trust in institutions. Without public belief in making change through democratic debate, political pluralism and representation from people who listen to them, we have a society vulnerable to exploitation by populist division and tyranny. First past the post adds to these risks. Those who seek to distort our national conversation from outside, using money and influence to pursue their own agenda, can see dangled in front of them the huge prize of what is virtually absolute power if they can achieve the slimmest of margins to reach first place in a volatile system. A two-party system, which first past the post assumes, is, in fact, long out of date.
As other hon. Members have said, the most recent UK general election was the most disproportionate on record. Not only did 58% of voters not receive an elected official of their choosing, but the election was one of the most disproportionate elections to a primary chamber anywhere in the world. People are voting in historic numbers for parties other than the Conservatives and Labour, representing different views across the political spectrum and bringing in points of view from across our island’s different nations, yet this Parliament does not come close to correctly reflecting that shift. We have a Parliament that is highly misrepresentative of the public’s preferences and a Government with a huge majority but only 33.7% of people’s preferences. That seems unbalanced and unrepresentative to me.
I am not here to make arguments that are only in my own self-interest. Proportionality is not the goal here; a better politics is. It is not just parties, but minority groups and the interests of groups who might be ignored, face discrimination or are geographically spread out, and whose interests do not often get a fair look-in when a large majority in this House is elected by only swing voters in marginal constituencies.
Like other Members from different parties, I was for many years a member of the London Assembly, elected under PR to scrutinise and hold to account a Mayor elected within a modified alternative vote system. I came here to this building to give evidence to the relevant all-party parliamentary group of the time in that capacity. I talked about how, as a London-wide member, working alongside constituency Members, my role was often to listen to groups who were not necessarily getting the ear of their constituency Member or the Mayor, and who were trying to highlight issues that were happening to people like them in pockets all around London.
Will the hon. Member explain how constituency casework would be done? As constituency MPs, we all represent a defined area of the population. Is the hon. Member suggesting a two-tier system, where she will instead just sweep up from the constituency MP? Is she effectively asking for two tiers of MPs?
Yes, exactly. I am describing the different kinds of work that different kinds of Members in the additional member system can do and how that benefits equality and representation. I am not making a party political point at all. I think members from other parties in the London Assembly can give examples of ways in which they have reached out and heard from people in different parts of London who have brought issues to prominence in the Assembly. In the case of the Green party, we can talk about council estate residents, private renters, young people, disabled people and older people, and the way that bringing their voices into the Assembly had a positive influence on the London Mayor’s policies and made him a positive advocate for helping to reduce the number of demolitions, for rent controls, for toilets on the London tube, and for youth services. That is very positive.
We have record levels of investment, record rises in wages and the fastest-growing economy in Europe. The upgrades from the International Monetary Fund and the OECD speak for themselves.
The issue that we are focusing on today, fixing our democratic plumbing, matters too. The Prime Minister said that restoring trust in politics is the
“battle that defines our age”,
and I believe that we can earn that trust by ensuring that people feel heard and have a say in decisions that affect their lives.