Televised Election Debates

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on introducing the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. To back up what he is saying, this is what the Hansard Society found in its 2018 “Audit of Political Engagement”:

“Among different sources of news and information respondents used to inform their decision-making at the 2017 general election, party leaders’ debates and political interviews were the most important”.

Although the process was imperfect in 2017, voters nevertheless said that debates were among the most important sources informing their decision making.

[Steve Double]

I agree. There is a growing appetite and many more voters today use leaders’ appearances on television, whether in head-to-head debates or in other formats, to get the information they need to make an informed decision.

I feel that the current situation, with horse-trading between the parties and a sense that no one really knows whether debates will happen or not—people set out their criteria, and we cannot be sure how serious anyone is about wanting the debates to take place—is not helpful and does not reflect well on our democratic process. I therefore believe that it is time to embrace debates and formalise the process so everyone is clear about the expectations. They should be taken out of the political sphere and put into the hands of an independent body that can hopefully manage the process much better.

Sky News laid out some proposals for the independent commission that is proposed to manage this process. It said that the commission should be established by parliamentary statute and funded solely by agreed contributions by UK broadcasters—I am sure we would all agree that the taxpayer should not fund the commission or the debates; they must be paid for by the broadcasters. It said that the commission should be made up of former judges, civil servants, broadcasters and other public figures who have experience in the media and politics, and overseen by a Cross-Bench peer with relevant experience, and that it should ensure that the general public have the opportunity to see the leaders of the political parties that could form a Government debate each other by including at least one televised debate between electorally realistic candidates for Prime Minister before every general election. I believe that those sensible proposals would put in place a framework that would ensure that the process is managed well and happens in an orderly and fair manner.

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[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew)—I agree with virtually everything he said—and my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), who introduced the motion in a very reasoned way. I also thank the Petitions Committee for the debate—one of the advantages to come out of the expenses scandal is that the public can have things they are interested in debated in this House.

I am delighted that we have such an excellent Minister present to respond to the debate and to agree with everything I say. I am very interested to hear what she has to say, as I will be to hear the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), and the spokesperson for the Scottish National party, the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard)—two excellent parliamentarians.

I am particularly interested in what the shadow Minister will say, because at some time in the future his party might be in government. I hope that what he says today will apply when Labour is in government. It is a problem that people are quite keen on TV debates when in opposition, but not when in power.

[Kevin Brennan]

I should point out that when I was in Government, the Prime Minister at the time did agree to a television debate—in 2010.

[Mr Bone]

I will come to that specific point, because it is a very good example.

I am very grateful to Sky News, because it has done something really useful: it has got the wider public thinking about these debates. We cannot arrange them two or three months before a general election; we have to have an independent commission, because the problem is that the party with the advantage does not want to have a TV debate. The only time we get a debate is, for example, if the Prime Minister thinks that the Government are behind and the Leader of the Opposition wants publicity. That is exactly what happened with Gordon Brown. I would suggest that he thought it right to have a debate because he was behind.

I thought that the debate between Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg was very good. When we go out campaigning during a general election, we have a campaign session in the morning and in the afternoon, and between 5 pm and 7 pm in the evening. I remember getting back one evening after campaigning, going to the gym, putting on a headset and listening to the debates. The only thing that I remember really is the phrase, “I agree with Nick”, but the debates were very useful in helping electors to make up their minds on how to vote.

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[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

This has been a very interesting debate so far and I would like to say at the outset that, contrary to what has been said by some colleagues, I think that Sky News has performed a valuable public service in trying to take the party politics out of the process of election debates and allow us as politicians to concentrate on how best to present our policies, which, after all, is what really matters. I think that the Government should stop digging their heels in and back election debates as an integral and important part of our democracy. There is no need to wait; let’s just agree to debate.

We have had some very good speeches. First of all, the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) presented the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee extremely ably. He referred to the recent to-ing and fro-ing about the possibility of a Brexit TV debate, as did other hon. Members. I will come back to that point later in my remarks. He was intervened on by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), who pointed out the necessity of involving other parties in the debate process. We have had further discussion of that in the course of the debate and I will come back to it in a moment. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), speaking on behalf of the SNP, also raised this issue. It raises interesting and complicated questions when people participating in the debate, which is about electing this House of Commons, are not even candidates in that election to the House of Commons, and the hon. Gentleman made a very interesting argument as to why that broader perspective should be taken into account.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady, because she was not here for the debate and I am old school in that regard, I am afraid. I am happy to give way otherwise. It is not personal, but that is how I prefer to operate.

The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr made a valid point, but I think it raises interesting issues about which parties should be involved in these debates. They certainly must have a role and somehow be incorporated into this process, whether through the means suggested by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) or others.

The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay also said that leaders are much more visible and accessible these days than they used to be. I am not sure that is entirely true. When Clement Attlee was campaigning to be Prime Minister in 1945 and 1950, he drove around the country with his wife, Violet, in a Hillman Minx, to engage with the electorate. It is certainly true that times have changed. Attlee also said that being Prime Minister was the job that took up the least amount of his time of any job he had ever had.

The hon. Gentleman gave an interesting response to the questions from Parliament’s social media. Some of the points being made about the potential Americanisation of politics are important. However, I think the real challenges are not about the Americanisation of politics through TV debates, but about the involvement of large and shadowy amounts of money in British politics—the activities of organisations such as Cambridge Analytica and so on. Those are more worrying issues with the Americanisation of politics, rather than our having television debates.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) quite rightly said that the decision about whether we should have debates should not just rest in the hands of the Prime Minister. He also quite rightly pointed out the lack of television coverage of regional politics these days. He wanted to take the issue of debates out of party politics. He referred to the Nixon-Kennedy debates, saying that the thing he knows is that Nixon lost. Interestingly, of course, a lot of the polls showed that Nixon had won, particularly for people who had followed the debates on the radio rather than on television. That makes a valid point about the role of image in people’s political perspectives. Whether or not the TV debate was responsible for John Kennedy’s narrow victory is highly debatable, not least because when his father, Joseph Kennedy, was asked why the victory had been so narrow, he said that he could not afford a landslide. Again, money was perhaps more compelling and important in American politics than the debates.

In response to the hon. Member for Wellingborough, who also mentioned the 2010 debates, I am tempted to say—unusually—“I agree with Peter,” because I did agree with much of what he said. We look forward to seeing the details of his private Member’s Bill. He is the sort of Member who would never commit to supporting a Bill without having read every clause and word, and without having carefully performed an exegesis of every part, so I will not make any commitments about his Bill until we have seen what it says, but it certainly sounds like it contains some interesting ideas. We look forward to it surfacing on the Ides of March, as he suggested, and hopefully it will have a less portentous fate than that date might otherwise suggest.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the inclusion of the minor parties in one of the debates proposed by his Bill. It is an interesting area, because it is true that some parties that have a lower share of the vote and that do not stand in all parts of the United Kingdom were represented in previous debates—for example, in 2015, when David Cameron insisted on having a diluted debate because he did not want to have a head-to-head debate with my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and preferred to have a large number of voices, possibly to defuse the impact of the event overall. Nevertheless, despite the fact that it is the “Conservative and Unionist” party, at no point was it suggested that the Democratic Unionist party should participate in the debate. Unlike Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National party, it was not invited, even though it also stands in only one of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom. Nor was the Social Democratic and Labour party, which had hon. Members elected to this House at that time; the Ulster Unionist party, which has had hon. Members elected to this House in recent times; or indeed—whether it would have turned up or not—Sinn Féin, which stands in the general election and has elected MPs, although they do not take the oath or take their seats in this place.

There is an asymmetry to the way that such debates have been organised. Northern Ireland has largely been excluded from that process, even though it is an integral part of the United Kingdom. It is interesting that we now frequently debate the issue of the British border in Ireland, as I call it, because of the backstop and Brexit, but that in those general election debates, Northern Ireland was treated as a sideshow and almost as a separate election from the United Kingdom general election in terms of inviting people to participate. We look forward to the Bill tabled by the hon. Member for Wellingborough.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) reluctantly accepted that there would have to be a quango to administer election debates, but quite rightly pointed out that any such body should have a greater diversity than bodies such as the Electoral Commission. I agree that different political views should be represented, and it would also be important for any such body to have representation from the nations and regions of the United Kingdom, and from different social classes. Many of our bodies tend to be made up of the same kind of people with similar views. His suggestions on that were refreshing and interesting.

My hon. Friend also discussed the 2010 leadership debates and the so-called Cleggmania that allegedly resulted. Interestingly, of course, despite that spike in the polls, the Liberal Democrats won fewer seats in the 2010 election than they had held before, but because it was a hung Parliament, they ended up in government for the next five years.

The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) was extremely critical of Sky News for having campaigned on the issue. I have thought carefully about what he said and whether it is appropriate for a broadcaster to campaign in that way. It would be wholly inappropriate for a broadcaster to campaign on a political policy issue, but I do not think it is inappropriate—it is not outwith Ofcom’s rules—for a broadcaster to campaign in such a way for such debates. It is possibly more difficult for the BBC and ITV, which are also party to Ofcom’s rules, because special considerations are involved for public service broadcasters. I do not agree, however, that it was inappropriate for Sky News to campaign on the issue and in fact, in doing so, I think it has provided a valuable public service and has helped to bring about this interesting debate.

[John Lamont]

Given that other petitions on Parliament’s petition website are arguably more worthy and, in some cases, have more support, why has Sky News not given them any coverage or reported on them, but has given almost hourly coverage to its own campaign?

[Kevin Brennan]

I suggest, probably, because it is its own campaign. It is a valid point that a lot of the issues that the hon. Gentleman mentioned are worthy of more news coverage. Hopefully his remarks will have brought those campaigns to broadcasters’ attention and they will receive more coverage in future.

The hon. Gentleman said that he thought debates provide little additional information for voters, and again I disagree. As I said in an intervention on the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay, the Hansard Society report indicates that the general public say that they find debates a valuable way—indeed, among the most important ways—of gaining information to help them to decide how to vote. He went on to talk about the SNP leader’s role in the debates and whether a voter in Cornwall would be interested in what the leader of the SNP had to say. He said that such a voter could not vote for the leader of the SNP, but, of course, nobody in Scotland could vote for the leader of the SNP, because the leader of the SNP was not a candidate in the general election. That raises interesting points as to who should participate in debates and whether those who do should be the leaders of political parties or the leaders of groups that are hoping to gain election to the House of Commons. It is a moot point, but a valid one. Even though the leader of the SNP is extremely important to Scottish voters, it is true that Scottish voters would not have an opportunity to vote for her in a general election.

The hon. Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones), who always speaks with a great deal of expertise on broadcasting matters because of his previous career with the BBC, asked how leaders could be compelled to attend if we were to pass a Bill, such as the one envisaged by the hon. Member for Wellingborough, that said that political party leaders had to participate in such debates.

As other hon. Members have pointed out, it is not unreasonable for us to expect the leaders of political parties, who have ambitions to become the Prime Minister, to comply with the law. I am not suggesting that we should have draconian penalties for anyone refusing to comply, but it would be extraordinary if the leader of a political party, a potential candidate to be the Prime Minister of this country, sought not to comply with a perfectly reasonable law to get them to participate in an essential element of the democratic process as judged by this Parliament. That is a bit of a red herring; they would turn up by virtue of the fact that it would be the law that they should participate. Nor is it unreasonable that such a law should be considered and potentially reach the statute book.

The hon. Member for North Devon made an interesting and valid point about how relevant TV debates are in this age of social media, whether they are old fashioned and whether, in a sense, we are asking a question that is no longer particularly pertinent and might have been more relevant 30 or 40 years ago. However, although I bow to his expertise about television, I think that where linear television still hits home is in the big live event type of television, whether that is “The X-Factor”, a sporting event, or the participation of political leaders at the time of a general election, when the nation’s attention turns to the question of who will govern the country for the next five years. At such times, a live television linear-type event is still highly relevant and of interest to the public, and would be supplemented massively by activity on social media; I think that is true. Obviously, social media has a huge role to play in modern elections and we need to look at the whole issue of social media, including Facebook and other types of platforms, in more detail, as it now has a major influence on our politics.

We support, in broad terms, the campaign that there should be some sort of independent means to ensure that TV debates take place between party leaders at general elections. The reason we are doing so is that the Minister, as a Minister, has the opportunity to try to make some sense of the complicated electoral law that we have. It is voluminous, it is fragmented, and it poses problems for electoral administrators, campaigners, voters and policy makers. There are 40 Acts of Parliament and more than 170 statutory instruments relating to our electoral legal framework and some of those provisions go back into the 19th century.

It is widely accepted by those involved in administering or competing in elections, such as the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators, that fundamental reform of electoral law is needed, but the Government have not really listened to that argument. In February 2016—nearly three years ago—the Law Commission published its interim report, calling for the laws governing elections to be rationalised into a single consistent legislative framework governing all elections, but the Government are yet to respond to that, even though, as I say, it has been nearly three years. I encourage the Government to look again at that report and respond to it.

I have mentioned this previously, but I also urge the Government to look at the 2018 audit of political engagement by the Hansard Society, which found that among the different sources of news and information that respondents used to inform their decision making at the 2017 general election, party leaders’ debates and political interviews were deemed to be the most important ways in which they were able to make up their minds. Furthermore, 74% of those who used those things in that way said the party leaders’ debates and political interviews were at least “fairly important” in their decision making. There is a need for a wider reform of electoral law and the issue of TV debates should be included within that.

My own party leader has said in response to this campaign:

“I welcome any move that will guarantee general election debates so that voters can hear directly from those putting themselves forward to lead the country.”

That was a welcome statement, but unfortunately the Prime Minister has not matched it, which is a shame. Speaking to Sky, she said:

“The next general election isn’t until 2022. There’s plenty of time to think about those issues at that time.”

In fact, that is exactly the time when there will not be plenty of time to think about these issues. Now is the time to think about them. We may not be immediately able to solve them, but now is the time to think across parties about the best way to handle the issue, because if we get to 2022 and start thinking about it, we will have the same old to-ing and fro-ing, and shenanigans, and jiggery-pokery that we have seen recently in relation to the discussions about the possibility of leaders’ debates on Brexit.

Whatever we think about the merits of such debates, and the question is different from that of whether party leaders should debate at a general election, the truth is that the way in which such arguments come about, and this has happened over the course of a number of Governments, going back some considerable time, is something like this—in fact, I know exactly how the suggestion of a Brexit debate came about. No. 10 went to Tom Newton Dunn at The Sun and said, “We need a page lead for the Prime Minister on Brexit. The Prime Minister is in trouble on Brexit. We need a page lead.” If someone needs a page lead in The Sun, they don’t get it for nothing. So The Sun said in return, “Well, what can you give us as an exclusive, or a scoop in old-fashioned terms, for giving you a front-page lead in The Sun?” Of course, the answer was, “Well, we’ll say that the Prime Minister is in favour of challenging the Leader of the Opposition to a debate on Brexit”, in the full knowledge that that would never happen unless some groundwork had been done, unless there had been some discussion between parties, and unless the other parties that have an interest in this matter—as the hon. Member for Edinburgh East, the spokesman for the Scottish National party, rightly pointed out—had an opportunity to have an input as well. A debate on Brexit was not going to happen on those terms, but that is how these things come about, which is a pretty shabby process. If we had a properly independent process, then we could get rid of all the jiggery-pokery around election debates and actually get down to concentrating on trying to present our policies effectively to the electorate.

Finally, I challenge the Minister to go a little further than the Government have so far and at least entertain the possibility of supporting the kind of measure that is being proposed by Sky News and her hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Wellingborough, which the Opposition and other parties support, whereby a consensus on a way forward can be found to ensure that such debates can happen, rather than waiting until 2022, when it will be far too late.

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[Chloe Smith]

I hope that my hon. Friend’s flattery of me extends to knowing that I am a friend of Parliament, and I look forward to Parliament having the opportunity to have that debate when the time comes. I will make no further comment on what should be the passage, or otherwise, of that Bill. Today, what I am trying to do—which I hope is welcome—is go into some of the arguments that reasonably pertain to the proposal in front of us. The least courtesy we should give to any petition is to give it a proper going over, debating the arguments that we think relate to it.

I call the House’s attention to the fact that the proposal would require primary legislation, which is not two a penny. What we choose to do through primary legislation requires some prioritisation, and that is the part of the electoral law framework that would have to be looked at if we wanted to do this. The hon. Member for Cardiff West has already made the point that election law is complex. It is thought by many to be fragmented and unwieldy, and it absolutely the case that it is aged. He is right to say that parts of election law relate to the 19th century. As I have said, I am not convinced that we should add another piece that relates, arguably, to the 20th century, not to mention the 21st. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that election law is a complicated matter, but I do not yet see the argument for adding this proposal to it through primary legislation.

Another aspect of what it means to put something into law has already been referred to, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon. I share his concern that forcing somebody to attend a debate—effectively, making somebody a criminal for not taking part in a debate—is unlikely to be a priority for law enforcement. The hon. Member for Cardiff West suggests that he does not want to add any penalties to the proposal, but he still wants to see it in law. I do not think that is a very strong position: if we do not wish to criminalise somebody for something, we do not put it into law. If a proposal stands on its own because it is reasonable and virtuous, that is fine, but in this case debates happen already and need not be made mandatory. We put something in law if we want the hon. Gentleman’s chief constable, and my chief constable, to have to spend their time thinking about it. I am not convinced that turning members of political parties into criminals for not participating in a television debate, or indeed in any other campaigning activity, is the right thing to do.

We also ought to think about the electorate. If participation in the debate is compulsory, is watching it going to be compulsory as well?

[Kevin Brennan]

indicated dissent.