Scotland Bill

Graeme Morrice Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Donohoe]

I was two out again. I am not doing so well in that sense.

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

Following on from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), is my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe) aware of the recent case in which a regional list MSP for Central Scotland was claiming to be almost a constituency MSP for Airdrie and Shotts, to the extent that he had surgery posters with “Airdrie and Shotts” on them? The regional area that he covers is, of course, much larger. I suspect that it was done for electoral reasons, with his being the SNP candidate for the Airdrie and Shotts Scottish parliamentary constituency.

[Mr Donohoe]

Of course I agree with my hon. Friend, and I shall return to that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graeme Morrice]

My understanding of the system is that there are two candidates, and therefore two votes. Of course that is based on first past the post. It is not dissimilar to the system that applies to local government elections in England when there are several candidates for several seats within a multi-member ward and electors have several Xs to put on a ballot paper.

[Mr Reid]

That is correct. However, two Members are elected: the first two. That is not first past the post.

The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire criticised the system for election to the Scottish Parliament in which the person who finished second in the constituency might still be elected on the list, but the same would apply under the strange system that he has come up with in the new clause.

[Graeme Morrice]

The hon. Gentleman has got this wrong. There would be two candidates—there could be two Labour candidates standing, or two Lib Dem, Tory or Scottish National party candidates—and the electors would have two votes. I would vote twice, and put down two crosses for two Labour candidates. There is not a second candidate, therefore; there are two firsts, and the electors have two votes—the two crosses.

[Mr Reid]

Yes, but some people might not vote for party tickets. This system is used in English local government elections, and it is very uncommon for the first two candidates to get exactly the same number of votes. One will finish first, and another will finish second, and sometimes where there is a close result candidates from different parties get elected.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

We really are having arithmetic and mathematics lectures today.

I think that the momentum is with the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire. Opinion is moving in the same direction as him and I think it is starting to go with him. I looked around and saw some of the enthusiasm from some of his hon. Friends this afternoon and I think the Labour party has a genuine problem. I have a solution, however, Mr Hoyle, in which you might be interested. I understand that the Labour party is holding an important conference this weekend, so the hon. Gentleman should get a day return—not the Caledonian sleeper—up to Oban and have this debate with the Labour party. The Scottish people need to know what the Labour party is doing.

I believe that the Labour party is split from top to bottom on this issue and that has to be resolved. I know that up at Oban it will be the usual whinge-fest.

[Graeme Morrice]

The SNP has a preoccupation with the Labour party; why does not the hon. Gentleman simply address the issue?

[Pete Wishart]

I am offering a solution so that the issue can be resolved and fixed up once and for all. The Scottish people want to know what the Labour party thinks. Labour designed this mechanism; let us see what it thinks about it now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful, Mr Hoyle.

I do not think that the signatories to the new clauses singularly loathe the additional member system—they also loathe the single transferable vote for local government in Scotland and everything to do with proportional representation.

[Graeme Morrice]

indicated assent.

[Pete Wishart]

That is their view. They want the death of PR in Scotland.

A few interesting things came out of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire’s contribution, the most interesting of which was about list Members. I think he has to take this up with the Labour list Members in the highlands, in north-east Scotland and in mid-Scotland and Fife. I know that SNP list Members are particularly active within the larger constituencies and do a fantastic job.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman will have had his own experiences with these issues.

An hon. Member has pointed out that there have been problems with list Members on a couple of occasions, but I am surprised that it is only a couple of occasions. List Members seem to co-exist with first-past-the-post Members on reasonably good terms. I recognise a number of issues and problems that have been identified by a number of Members.

[Graeme Morrice]

Further to my intervention earlier in the debate, is the hon. Gentleman aware of the situation of one Scottish National party MSP, Alex Neil, who was admonished by the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament for giving the impression, despite the fact that he is the regional list MSP for Central Scotland, that somehow he was a local constituency MSP for Airdrie and Shotts, which has its own directly elected constituency MSP?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davidson]

Is it not interesting that in debates about changing the voting system we were always told that changing to a proportional system would boost the turnout? In fact, if anything, the reverse is true. I accept much of the argument made by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) about media coverage, and I recognise that the situation is more complex, but those who argued for proportional representation never made that point. They suggested a clear correlation that has been demonstrated to be untrue.

[Graeme Morrice]

Is my hon. Friend aware that at the general election in May, turnout under first past the post increased by about 4%? It is going in the right direction.

[Mr Davidson]

That is an excellent point, and I am glad that it has been made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Connarty]

The point is that when the electorate then see that person’s behaviour in the list system, they are puzzled. I give the example of the Lothian Members, who are centred mainly in the city of Edinburgh. Where do the SNP list Members have their office? They have it in a little village called Whitburn in my constituency—well out of the city centre and the locale near the Parliament. That might have something to do with the fact that every time we have an election, the person who loses for the SNP stands against my MSP under first past the post, and that constituency happens to cover the village of Whitburn and areas in West Lothian. That clearly distorts not only the electoral system but the use of resources allocated to list Members, basically to try to back up the challenge under first past the post. New clause 1 would remove that problem by providing for two Members for each MP seat—it could be split in half or done some other way. That would give people the sort of representation that they like.

I have no doubt that colleagues in all the political parties in Scotland believe that when people come to see them, they know that they are their representatives and that they are accountable to those people. In the Scottish parliamentary system, however, people do not really know because of the number of layers involved. They might go to the list Member, and if they get nothing there they will try the first-past-the-post Member and vice versa. The list Member might first back up the person and then take a different view. Then it might come to seeing the Member of Parliament to find out whether they will back them up.

[Graeme Morrice]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who represents a constituency in the local authority area where I have a constituency. I certainly share his views and concerns on this matter and I empathise with his viewpoint. Does he agree, however, that the real problem is the absolute confusion among the electorate about the difference between constituency MSPs and regional list MSPs? Within Scotland, possibly 99% of the electorate, if asked, would not know who all their regional list MSPs were.

[Michael Connarty]

That is an easy question to answer. It is quite clear that most people in this Chamber, if asked to list them, would not know all the regional list MSPs in their area. That is not the way I like to see the issue, however. It is not so much about confusion among the electorate; it is more that the electorate are not well represented. It is not because they are confused, but because the system invites certain behaviours that run counter to good representation. People do not know who is accountable to them and it is quite clear that list members are not accountable to the electorate. They are accountable to their party, because it is the party that puts them on the list and into the system.