English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for not participating at Second Reading and speaking on this occasion, but the circumstances between Second Reading and now have changed very substantially. I intend to concentrate on the amendments relating to delayed elections.

Before I do so, may I make an observation? I shall go no further at this stage than making it clear to the noble Lord, Lord Pack, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and others that I do not support their proposals in relation to changing the voting systems. Although I know that they pursue this matter on a point of principle, I warn them that, under the current political circumstances, trying to change the electoral systems will be portrayed by one political party in particular as denying it the opportunity to be represented on councils. I make that observation in passing.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in principle. I have tried to make contact with the Association of Electoral Administrators to establish its view on this but, unfortunately, its excellent chief executive, Peter Stanyon, who is normally enormously helpful on such matters, is currently off in ill health. So I could not get any clarification, but I am sure that, in broad principle, it would want to follow what this amendment is pursuing.

I turn now to the nub of this whole issue, which is the delay in elections. I first spoke on electoral matters in the other House in 1984. I voted against the then Conservative Government on a three-line Whip—I was one of the first new boys to do so—because I believed that the Government were, in the process of abolishing the GLC via the paving Bill, interfering with democracy. Looking back on that proposed Bill, I still take that view and am pleased that I voted against the Government on that occasion. It is interesting that the Government dropped the specific proposal against which I voted after the House of Lords passed its opposition to that same clause by a majority.

Since that time, I have never given consideration to the possibility of deferring elections for up to seven years. If somebody had suggested to me that that was going to happen in this democratic country, I would have said that they were positively insane. The history of the last few weeks has really called into question my faith in the legislation that we have on our democratic process. On 18 November, the Minister’s response to me and others was that the intention of the Government was to hold the elections as identified in full. We received the same response on 8 December.

On 18 December, the day we went into recess, the Government issued a letter to 63 councils asking whether they wished to defer the elections. Please do not tell me, or other Members of this House or the other, that no consideration was given on 18 November or during the five weeks that followed—or even on the night of 17 December—to the fact that there might be delays in elections, because nobody will believe you, I am afraid. It is a question of competence and honesty in relation to the processes. I have come to the conclusion that, sadly, we are witnessing a serious erosion of our democratic principles in this country by silence at different stages.

I do not mind which amendment we adopt, in what form, but we have to ensure that, as a democratic country, which I believe the United Kingdom to be, we are never again in the position where a Government announce their actions in the way that they have, with the result—as the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, and others have said—that people who have a vested interest in not facing re-election are taking the decisions on those elections. I despair of what I have witnessed over the last few weeks. I ask the Government to be more honest and open throughout, because it is not acceptable that I find myself, for the first time in 40 years of reviewing elections, seriously questioning whether a Government can interfere with elections when they really should not.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak a little about the proposals to change to a supplementary vote. I have some memories of how this came to be, since I was involved between 1996 and 1998 in some of the discussions between the Liberal Democrats and the then Labour Government about voting systems. The Labour Cabinet was divided on the subject; Jack Straw was one of the strongest opponents of any change in the electoral system and the most he was prepared to accept was the sort of bastard form of half way towards an alternative vote, which is the supplementary vote. It is neither one thing nor the other.

Now that we are in a multiparty system, we have to face up to the implications of where we are. For most of the last year, we have had five parties in England getting between 10% and 30% of the vote and no party getting over 30% of the vote. The elected Mayor of the West of England received 25% of the vote to become mayor. I think the record for the lowest percentage of the vote won by a winning candidate happened in a Cornish local by-election, in which the Liberal candidate was victorious with 19.5% of the vote in a six-party contest.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

The noble Lord is correct.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

We need to recognise where we are. If we want mayors to have public acceptance and credibility, they had better not be elected on less than a quarter of the vote. If we have a five-party system, the opinion polls—my nerdy noble friend here does his best to educate me about public opinion polls and I therefore follow them in some detail—show that if you look at second preferences for Reform, Conservative or Liberal Democrat voters, they are very diverse, and one cannot guarantee that votes will easily transfer from one party to another definite party. Jack Straw was prepared to accept the supplementary vote in the belief that, in London elections, the Liberal Democrats were more likely on the whole to vote Labour as their second preference than the Conservatives, and therefore it was acceptable. The supplementary vote is half way to where we need to go but it is neither one nor the other.

I simply say to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that the old argument that the English people would not understand something more complicated than first past the post is for the past. The Irish understand a more complicated voting system very well, as do the Scots. The idea that the English education system is so poor that our voters will not understand simply does not begin to stand up.

If mayors are going to be key elements in devolution, we need to face up to a system that will provide us with the assurance that mayors will be elected in such a way as to gain the acceptance and credibility they need to have their posts. The current first past the post system does not guarantee that nor does the supplementary vote system. The Government need to recognise that that is where we are.

--- Later in debate ---

This amendment seeks to require certain candidates to provide electors with a means of contacting them. The Government recognise that the transparency of candidates seeking election to public office is important, and that the electorate should know about the candidates and policies being voted on. However, we believe it is responsibility of candidates and political parties to decide how they wish to campaign, promote themselves and engage with electors. We therefore do not support setting any requirements on how this is done. Candidates are already able to provide the public with their contact details if they wish to do so. We believe it is appropriate for candidates themselves to decide the best approach to take on communicating with the public, taking into account their individual preferences and circumstances. With these assurances and explanations, I hope that noble Lords and noble Baronesses will not move their amendments.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

Between 8 and 18 December, was there no consideration whatever of the possibility of delaying the elections? If that is the case, what changed between 8 and 18 December that resulted in the letters going to the 63 councils?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I have already outlined to the noble Lord that the sentence I used, whenever we discussed this and whenever I was asked, was that elections would not be cancelled unless there were substantial reasons for doing so. Local authorities made those representations, which is why the decision was taken.