Oral Answers to Questions

George Eustice Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

The hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, was asked—

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

1. What discussions the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission has had with the Electoral Commission on its monitoring of the conduct of the forthcoming referendum on the alternative vote.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)]

The Speaker’s Committee has had no such discussions. However, under section 5 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the Electoral Commission must

“prepare and publish…a report on the administration of”

any UK-wide referendum. The findings of its report will be based on evidence collected from a variety of sources, including an analysis of referendum data, feedback from electoral administrators, designated organisations and permitted participants, and public opinion research.

[George Eustice]

One area where the Electoral Commission is a statutory consultee is the allocation of referendum campaign broadcasts to the designated yes and no campaigns. In a debate such as that on the alternative vote system, about which there are currently very low levels of public understanding, public engagement could be encouraged and increased by having a higher frequency of much shorter referendum broadcasts. What steps is my hon. Friend taking to ensure that the Electoral Commission takes its responsibilities seriously and moves to modernise our system of party broadcasts?

[Mr Streeter]

Under current law, the BBC and other broadcast organisations must have regard to the commission’s views when deciding their policy and rules about any referendum campaign broadcasts. Discussions have already taken place, and the Electoral Commission supports the BBC’s proposal to allocate broadcasts on the referendum only to those organisations designated by the commission, which will ensure a fair balance between the yes and no campaigns.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

George Eustice Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan]

Yes, that is precisely what could happen, and if the controversy and disagreement on the wording all tended to come from one side rather than the other, that could create an insinuation of bias on the part of the Electoral Commission’s conduct and intent as well.

I give hon. Members a warning. Perhaps this is not a warning, but bad advice; or rather, perhaps it will turn out to be advice that I am ill-advisedly giving to some Members who would campaign against AV. The experience in some of the referendums in the south is that no campaigns have basically adopted campaigns of misinformation. They have created a lot of confusion and controversy around relatively straightforward issues, and then resorted to the tactic of campaigning on the slogan “If you don’t know, vote no”.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mark Durkan]

No, because I shall sit down soon and the hon. Gentleman can make his own contribution then.

We have already seen an attempt to create confusion, with some of the obfuscation and the diversionary amendments from hon. Members previously. I am particularly worried that amendment 247 could be a recipe for serious mischief and utter grief as far as the conduct of the referendum is concerned. I wait to hear what more the Government will say about their amendment 264, which seems relatively straightforward. However, if the choice is between the two non-Government amendments in the group, I would prefer amendment 136, although I have my reservations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Redwood]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. A powerful point for the no case in the referendum—the case against a change in our electoral system—is just that: that so many electoral systems are already in use, particularly in Wales and Scotland, that it could become quite complicated for people trying to remember which system they are voting under. If people are voting under a system other than the current, general system for the national election, they may wish to vote more tactically. One feature of AV is that a natural Liberal Democrat voter who wanted to make their party greener might think it a good idea to vote Green for their first preference and to give the Liberal Democrats only their second preference. That would be a perfectly rational strategy for that voter to make their party greener, but they would need to know that they were voting under that system to make doing so sensible.

However, I have wandered a little from my main point, which is that in order to preserve that impartiality, it is better to say nothing. The whole point of an election is to tease out the issues, so that electors can make their own decisions. In the last general election, the different parties made claims, and we then had to watch or listen to the BBC come out with so-called experts who said that they could find the truth, either by saying that it was between the two parties, or by concluding that neither party was telling the truth and then coming up with the BBC truth. This is a free society, and that was probably quite helpful in the election—if that is what turned the BBC on and what it wanted to pay people good salaries to do—but I do not think that many voters think, “Ah! At last I’ve got the impartial truth! The BBC correspondent has told me that Labour weren’t right on this issue and that the Tories weren’t right on that issue, so I now know the truth.” I think that the elector goes off and forms their own judgment.

[George Eustice]

I want to pick up on the point about impartiality. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way to guarantee the impartiality of the Electoral Commission and the information it puts out is to ensure that it has the agreement of both campaigns, which would prevent it from straying into this area? It was said earlier that the no campaign in a previous referendum was putting out misinformation, but in this referendum the NO2AV campaign has called for the Electoral Commission to issue an explanatory booklet because we want that information out there. Does my right hon. Friend understand that that information will be stronger if it is agreed by both campaigns?

[Mr Redwood]

I am grateful for that intervention, from which I learned that the no campaign would like one of these booklets. However, I rather prefer the lock on the door that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex is proposing, as I remain to be persuaded that such a booklet can be phrased in a way that everybody would find fair. The fairest thing to do is to put this lock on the door; then we will know that we have had a fair referendum because everybody will have consented to it.

If the Minister will accept amendment 247, that will be wonderful and my hon. Friends will rest content. If, as I suspect, he will not, will he at least say that he will warn the Electoral Commission not to try to write a definitive document, as it would just be torn to pieces?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

George Eustice Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

That may well be the case, and my hon. Friend and I might find that a very happy outcome, but when the Government drafted the original question we were very clear about the fact—which was confirmed by the Electoral Commission’s research—that it was neutral and not biased. The Government’s position is that we very much want the referendum, but are neutral about the outcome. The two coalition parties are not neutral about it, but the Government are: that is, Ministers are neutral in their capacity as Ministers. I am glad that the commission found that our question was neutral and not biased.

However, my hon. Friend has hit on a good point: the need to ensure that voters know what they are voting on. We thought it important to include in the Bill the details of the specific form of alternative vote that would be brought into effect in the event of a “yes” vote in the referendum. My hon. Friend characterised it correctly as an optional preferential system. No doubt the Electoral Commission will conduct some education in a neutral and unbiased way. The two campaigns will also explain not just the mechanics of the system, but the outcomes and potential impact of introducing it or retaining the existing system. I am convinced that by the end of the campaign, voters will be in no doubt about the consequences, and will therefore be able to make a very clear decision on 5 May next year.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I think that the Electoral Commission’s wording is a big improvement. It removes words such as “adopt”, which had biased connotations in the original. I have studied the commission’s research. According to one of its findings,

“Some people thought that the reason for changing the voting system was because the last election had resulted in a hung Parliament and that perhaps AV would avoid that.”

There is clearly a great deal of confusion about AV, which will actually lead to more rather than fewer hung Parliaments.

There is a second problem. In fact, AV is simply a second-rate version of first past the post. Let me make another suggestion about the wording. Perhaps it should refer to a “one person, one vote” system, which is what we have now, versus a multiple voting system in which some people receive more votes than others—which is basically what AV is.

[Mr Harper]

I think that my hon. Friend is anticipating the referendum campaign. Tempted though I am, he would not expect Ministers to be drawn into a debate about the merits of different electoral systems at the Dispatch Box. That will take place when we have the referendum. However, he made a good point about the need to engage in a good debate about the issue. The Electoral Commission did say in its research findings that some members of the public had trouble with language when it came to the use of the words “Parliament” and “House of Commons”. Thinking back to the previous debate and the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), we in this House should consider members of the public who do not take an enormous interest in, or spend a great deal of time on, these issues, important though we think they are. We need to make sure we address those people, and not just ourselves.

It is very important that the referendum question should be clear and simple to understand. The Government welcome the commission’s helpful report. I have read it carefully and, based on the evidence that the commission presented, we have decided to accept its redrafted question.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

George Eustice Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I shall support the Bill this evening because I have always been a strong supporter of referendums. They can play an important role in rekindling confidence in our democracy. A referendum allows the country to focus on a single issue, rather than having too much personality in politics and too much party politics. It also encourages the creation of cross-party coalitions based on an issue.

I know that many Opposition Members have gone off the idea of coalitions in the past few months. My first job in politics was working for a different coalition—the no campaign against the euro. Some of those in the Opposition—the Labour against the euro campaign and the Green party, and trade unions such as the Transport and General Workers Union—were instrumental in making sure that this country made the right decision on the euro and decided not to join. I very much look forward to working with old friends again, as I am again on the no side of the campaign, and perhaps with some new friends to defeat the AV referendum campaign.

Our one person, one vote system has stood the test of time. Sometimes I hear proponents of electoral reform say, “If the candidate that you voted for doesn’t get elected, your vote is wasted.” It is shameful that people say that. There is no such thing as a wasted vote in our democracy. Every party that takes part, however big and however many votes it gets, is part of the richness of that debate. All of us as MPs have to try to win the confidence of voters who might be minded to vote for smaller parties. It is not true that those are wasted votes.

The AV system is not even a more proportional system. It is just a second-rate version of the first-past-the-post system. It does nothing for smaller parties. The message to smaller parties is that people can vote and then try again and again, until in the end they vote for one of the big two parties in any given constituency. That is not more proportional.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the light of what the hon. Gentleman has just said, and of his welcome endorsement of giving the people a say, does he agree that there should be a question in the referendum to offer voters the choice of PR?

[George Eustice]

That is an interesting proposition and it may be one of the issues that is examined in Committee. Those who advocate proportional representation are at least making an intellectually honest case, whereas there is no strong intellectual case for AV. It is a system that is less proportional and one in which some people have votes counted twice, whereas other people have only one of their votes counted. How can that be more fair?

[Robert Halfon]

Although I understand the merits of first past the post, does my hon. Friend agree that the one flaw in it is that there are constituencies where no candidate gets a majority of the vote? What does he think of the French system, which retains first past the post but has a second run-off ballot for the top two a week later, making sure that in each constituency the winner has a majority of the vote?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. I personally favour the system that we have; it has stood the test of time, and we should stay with it. The system that is used in the French presidential elections might work in a presidential situation where there are just two candidates nationally, but not in the same way when spread more widely.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be extremely unfair to expect one of the Cornish constituencies—his, mine, or one of the others—to cross the historic Tamar border that we already have?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely valid point. Cornwall is a special case. It is not just a normal county—it is a duchy. That is certainly something that should be considered in Committee.

I want to finish by making a couple of points about the fairness of the referendum. I understand the Deputy Prime Minister’s argument about the cost of holding a referendum on a separate date. As somebody who would like to see more referendums locally, I also recognise that we need to find a way of running certain local referendums on the same day as local elections. However, this is a very different kettle of fish—we are talking about a national referendum on a major constitutional issue, and that should be held on a separate date.

The current proposition is to run the referendum simultaneously alongside national elections in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. That poses two major problems. First, national elections in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have different spending limits from those pertaining in the referendum, so the Electoral Commission will have two parallel sets of spending restrictions under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

Secondly, there is the question of getting a fair debate in terms of broadcasting. It is already challenging enough for broadcasters to show fairness to all parties in an election: imagine how much more difficult it will be if, as well as showing fairness to all the parties in three separate national elections, they also have to show parity and fairness to two sides of a referendum campaign, where different parties will take different views, and different people within those parties will take different views. This aspect has not been considered sufficiently, and I hope that the Government will have further consultations not only with the Electoral Commission but with the Broadcasters Liaison Group to see whether there is a way around it.