Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2026

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I concur 100% with the comments from my noble friend Lord Hayward. I am going to take this statutory instrument at face value and discuss the issues that it raises on the alternative vote and first past the post. As noble Lords will know, when proportional representation was tested with the electorate in 2011—in this case, the alternative vote referendum—it was lost by a margin of 68% to 32%.

Noteworthy in the statutory instrument is the paucity of intellectual rationale for why the changes are happening. I agree with my noble friend: it looks like a cynical stitch-up to avoid embarrassment in the combined boroughs of Greater Manchester. But it also potentially looks like a strategy for a progressive alliance being rolled out in the run-up to a general election—for instance, with the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats —with the stated or probably unstated aim of locking out the Conservatives and Reform UK from power.

First past the post is simple and fair, and Conservatives have always supported it. It ensures proper representation and broad campaigning by parties, rather than policies targeted on a subset of voters. It is simple and transparent. Even in a disaggregated, fragmented political landscape, it is still stable and effective at delivering governance. One person secures the plurality of votes and that is transparent. As it happens, almost 100 Labour MPs have been elected in the other place with less than 35% of the votes. So if it is good enough for this Government’s majority in the other place, it is good enough for our elections generally.

In 2016, the Home Affairs Select Committee recommended that first past the post was best to replace the supplementary vote in police and crime commissioner elections. SV causes confusion and leads to a lot of spoiled and rejected ballots. The Electoral Commission, in its September 2021 report on the 2021 elections, noted:

“A quarter of people who had difficulties filling in their ballot paper in areas holding both local government and PCC elections said it was confusing that the elections used different voting systems. A third of people voting in London said that they found the two voting systems confusing”.


In fact, the rejection rate in the London mayoralty election in 2021 was 114,201 ballots, of which 87,000 were because voters cast a vote for more than one candidate in the first-preference column; 265,353 votes were invalidated because the second preference was cast for the same candidate as the first; and 319,978 second preferences were unmarked. These void rates exceeded the votes validly transferred to the two leading candidates: Mr Khan got 192,000 votes, and Mr Shaun Bailey—now the noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington —got 85,000 transfers.

First past the post focuses on clear accountability. Electors know the one individual who is responsible for the failings or the successes of public policy. SV gives a recycled second vote the same democratic credibility as voters’ first choice. Each vote should count equally. One person, one vote. In fact, a supplementary vote is used almost nowhere else across the globe. The late, much-renowned and much-missed elections expert and academic, David Butler, described SV as a silly answer, based on the need to compromise between rival factions.

First past the post is quicker to count and cheaper to administer, as my noble friend Lord Hayward said, and better understood by voters. Some very eminent people in your Lordships’ House agree with this. In fact, one of them said that “SV is one of the worst systems. We had a referendum in 2011 on changing the voting system for elections to the House of Commons. This was wholly rejected, and I have seen nothing following on from that result, or anything that has happened subsequently, which leads me to believe that the country wants to change the voting system for any elections. We have managed to heap on voters a whole plethora of voting systems. That is not a good thing to do. I thought that one of the worst systems was the SV system. I have observed many counts where people have put a cross in the second column, which means that their votes are discounted.” Brilliantly said by the current Labour Government Chief Whip—quite, my Lords. Indeed, in 2021 the UCL Constitution Unit described the supplementary vote as “an anomaly” and out of step with other elections in England.

At least AV, which is an alternative system, allows a more pluralistic preference voting. I ask the Minister directly: will she confirm that these changes will take effect in respect of a putative Greater Manchester mayoral by-election, which may or may not happen later this year? This is about raw politics. It fails to make a coherent fact-based intellectual case for reverting to an SV regime. It is about locking out Reform UK and the Conservatives from power, and therefore it fails on merit and is a retrograde step, which my party and I oppose.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I will have a look at whether it is possible to get that figure; I thank the noble Lord for that question.

The noble Lords, Lord Hayward and Lord Jamieson, asked me why we are changing the voting system only for two types of mayoral elections. First, to reiterate— as I think was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock—these changes revert to the 2017 voting system, which was brought in by the Conservatives, and it was the Conservatives who changed it back in 2022. We are reverting to the system that the Conservatives had introduced for these single-office posts.

The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 received Royal Assent in April this year and the Government’s stated aim has always been that we will work at pace to deliver secondary legislation needed to implement the new law at the earliest appropriate opportunity. Of course, the Government are conscious that there is now a possible scenario in which a mayoral by-election may need to be held in Greater Manchester in the coming months, subject to the outcome of a parliamentary by-election in the Makerfield constituency on Thursday this week.

To fulfil both Parliament’s will and this Government’s stated commitment to reimplement SV, we have drafted this order at pace to ensure that the necessary legislation will be in place for this system to be utilised if that mayoral by-election takes place. To meet this deadline, the order had to be kept concise and could not include measures to amend all other types of mayoral elections. Amending all the relevant mayoral and PCC election conduct rules would also require a range of statutory instruments, as they use different parliamentary procedures. We intend to implement SV for other mayoralties and PCCs in due course through separate instruments.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

If the noble Lord will bear with me for a moment, I am going to answer some of his other points. If I do not cover it, he is welcome to step in.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, raised issues about the voting system. I am sure he will make his comments on voting in London when we make the instrument for London mayoral elections. To be clear, this particular instrument does not cover London mayoral elections. SV was the voting system implemented on the introduction of both mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections. As I said, we think it is much more appropriate for selecting single-person executive positions such as mayors or police and crime commissioners.

However—and the noble Lord Jamieson asked about this—we believe that the first past the post system is a clear way of electing representatives which is well understood by voters and which, although not perfect, provides for a direct relationship between a member of a legislature and the local constituency. The first past the post voting system is therefore a more suitable system where there are a number of seats to be filled, such as for a council or a Parliament, and the likelihood is that people representing a range of views and parties will be elected. Therefore, the Government have no plans to change the electoral system for UK parliamentary or local council elections in England.

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[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I thank the Minister. On a point of fact, as a result of the 2022 legislation which reverted back to first past the post, the Greater London returning officer estimated that, because it was not necessary to use the e-voting infrastructure for counting, there was an indicative saving of £4 million. That is the difference between the SV system and first past the post, so surely the Minister will concede that there is a significant greater cost of this new system that we do not yet know.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As I said, this instrument does not cover London, and there is no price to put on democracy. We should always be aiming for democracy first. However, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, I will do my best to find out if there is any financial impact of this instrument.

The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, asked me about the sector being able to cope with the late change. SV has been used in the past extensively and recently and will be deeply familiar to returning officers and their teams. My department has been working closely with the sector as it prepares for the changes arising from the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026, and we will continue to support it in managing any changes once this instrument is made. As I said, we consulted with the Electoral Commission, which did not have any concerns about this, so we are confident that the change is straightforward and the sector will have no issues in implementing it.

The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock—for very different reasons, I think—asked how the public will be informed of these changes, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, had some concerns in that area too. Electors will receive information on the voting system used via a number of methods, including guidance on postal voting statements and in polling stations that they will read prior to voting. More importantly, where there are three or more candidates at an election, the ballot paper itself will be clear that electors have the option to select a second preference. I am confident that electors will be informed of the change and understand their options when casting their vote, especially given that this is a voting system that has been used extensively in the past and will be well understood, and indeed familiar, to many voters. Greater Manchester used SV for almost all its elections, with the exception of one in 2024, reflecting its status as an established voting system.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock—again, I expect, for very different reasons —asked me why we were using SV, not a different system. The Government have no plans at present to introduce the single transferable vote to mayoral and PCC elections. The Government acknowledge that different voting systems can be better suited to different types of polls and elections, and we take the view that SV is the right system to use for selecting single-person executive positions. It requires the winning candidate to receive the majority of votes counted, and that ensures that they have broad support across the area and a broader mandate from the people they are representing. A key advantage of the SV system over other preferential voting systems is that, as I said, it was widely used before for mayors and PCCs, so people are familiar with it.

The other question from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, was about how the supplementary vote is counted. With a supplementary vote, if no candidate gets over 50% of the vote, the top two candidates continue to a run-off and all other candidates are eliminated. When casting their ballot, voters can put a second choice of who they would vote for in a run-off on the original ballot paper. If your favourite candidate gets through then your vote is counted for them in the run-off, but if they did not and your second choice did, then your vote goes to them. The run-off candidate with the most votes is declared the winner.