Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Skidelsky Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Skidelsky]

16: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, leave out subsections (3) and (4) and insert—
“(3) The question that is to appear on the ballot papers is—
At present, the UK uses the “first past the post” system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. It is proposed that the system should be changed. Please rank the following options in order of preference.
Should the UK use:
(a) the first past the post system;(b) the alternative vote system;(c) a proportional vote system?(4) In Wales, a Welsh version of the question is also to appear on the ballot papers.
(5) Each voter will be asked to mark the ballot paper with—
(a) the number 1 next to the option that is the voter’s first preference (or, as the case may be, the only option for which the voter wishes to vote);(b) if the voter wishes, the number 2 next to the option that is the voter’s second preference, and so on.(6) The voter may mark as many preferences (up to the number of options) as the voter wishes.
(7) Votes shall be allocated to options in accordance with voters’ first preferences and, if one option has more votes than the other options put together, that option shall be deemed to have been selected.
(8) If not, the option with the fewest votes will be eliminated and that option’s votes shall be dealt with as follows—
(a) each vote cast by a voter who also ranked one or more of the remaining options shall be reallocated to that remaining option or (as the case may be) to the one that the voter ranked the highest.(b) any votes not reallocated shall play no further part in the counting.(9) After the reallocation of votes and recounting, the option with the most votes shall be deemed to have been selected.”

[Lord Skidelsky]

My Lords, it will not have escaped the notice of the House that I am not the noble Lord, Lord Owen. My noble friend had a minor operation last week, and has had to return to hospital, from which he is being discharged today. He asked me to move this amendment in his name, which I am very pleased to do.

This amendment is not about the date of the referendum, but about its substance. In Clause 1 of the Bill, line 7 on page 1 gives the voter the choice between retaining the first past the post system to elect MPs, and the alternative vote system. This amendment is designed to give voters, in addition, an opportunity to express a preference for proportional representation. By allowing voters to rank their preferences, this amendment is sure to result in a majority expressing their preference for one or other of the three nominated options. It is a very simple demonstration of the power of the alternative vote under certain conditions.

Originally, those who tabled the amendment had intended to put all the varieties of proportional representation—AV plus, the additional member system, STV and maybe others—on the ballot paper, but, after consulting, it was decided to add just one general extra option: general proportional representation. This would leave the House of Commons to decide which version to adopt should PR get a majority. That seems sensible. The advantage of putting all the PR options to the electorate is quite compelling in terms of democracy, but, against that, it would overcomplicate the question being asked, and a referendum should be about broad principles and not about details. That is our main argument against the amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and the group of amendments put down by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I hope that on reflection they will feel willing to support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Owen.

This amendment expresses our disappointment that the alternative vote is the only alternative to the status quo which the Government are willing to offer. Whereas party-political deals are an essential part of political life—we all know that—I doubt whether such a flagrant party-political deal should be the subject of a referendum. We know why it has happened—no one denies it: it was the price of the coalition. The Liberal Democrats wanted electoral reform without a referendum; the Conservatives, who favour retaining the first past the post system, would not concede that, and a referendum on AV was the compromise position.

We also know from many sources, but most recently from Anthony Seldon’s fascinating book, Brown at Ten, that, after the general election, Gordon Brown—who was still Prime Minister—offered the Liberal Democrats a multi-question referendum identical to the amendment I am now moving. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, will probably know more about this than I do, but anyway, that was the revelation. The former Prime Minister offered the Liberal Democrats a multi-question referendum identical to the amendment I am now moving.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I wonder if the noble Lord could say whether he believes everything he reads in that book.

[Lord Skidelsky]

I believe everything I read that Anthony Seldon writes.

There was also an offer to make it a vote of confidence to guarantee its passage through Parliament. That was the offer. I am not questioning the judgment of the Liberal Democrat negotiators in turning down that offer in favour of a much inferior alternative, from their point of view. As they say, there were other considerations, but it might be helpful for noble Lords on the Labour and Liberal Democrat Benches to be reminded of this little history—and I think it is authentic—in making up their mind about the value of this amendment.

In our view, narrowing the choice to only two alternatives represents an abuse of the referendum mechanism. Referenda are not part of our political tradition. We use them sparingly to decide on questions of great constitutional consequence. I do not agree with those noble Lords who said that AV represents a radical change in our constitutional system. It retains most of the features of the first past the post system. By providing for reallocation of votes according to preference rankings, it ensures that no constituency Member is returned with less than 50 per cent of the vote. That is a change—it is a majority rather than a plurality—but it does not ensure representation of the minority any more than the first past the post system.

Nor would the alternative vote make much difference in practice. It has been calculated, for example, that the 2010 general election held under the alternative vote system would have returned 281 Conservative, 262 Labour and 79 Liberal Democrat MPs, as opposed to 307 Conservative, 258 Labour and 57 Liberal Democrat MPs. With impending boundary changes, one would expect that gap to shrink even further as time went on.

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[Lord Campbell-Savours]

The Plant commission did not turn down AV. It said that it was a perfectly acceptable system, but that it just preferred another. That system was within the AV family of systems; namely, the supplementary vote. I know that the noble Lord has had to pick up the brief from others who unfortunately are not able to attend, but I am having difficulty in understanding why he does not accept the supplementary vote in his amendment. He alluded to it previously, but it was not clear to me exactly what he meant in his explanation. Will he tell us that before he sits down?

[Lord Skidelsky]

I think that those who tabled the amendment did not want to overcomplicate the choices being put to voters. When people get into the nitty-gritty of constitutional change, first, they can get obsessive about having their own preferred system and, secondly, it can become very complicated. In our view, it is simply a device to delay any changes. We thought that it would be a better idea to have three broad choices, one of which was proportional representation, leaving it to the House of Commons to decide, if that was the preferred option—that is, if more than 50 per cent of people support it—on which particular variety they would legislate. That was the logic behind it.

I urge this amendment on the Government and ask them to consider it seriously. Not to take advantage of the chance opened up by a promised referendum in order to offer the electorate a major choice about the future of the electoral system would be to miss a major opportunity to test their appetite for political reform. I beg to move.

Amendment 16A (to Amendment 16)

Moved by

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[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, as always, the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, has made an attractive speech which was full of interesting references, although I think that this is a somewhat curious amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, made a powerful point, but it leads me rather in the opposite direction to the noble Lord and to think that one could not support this amendment.

It will not surprise anyone that I speak as someone who has been over time a strong supporter of our existing system. In the 1970s, I even wrote a pamphlet defending our system, called Electoral Reform No Reform. At least I stand by the title because it has always seemed to me that the advantages and disadvantages of electoral systems are more evenly balanced than people acknowledge. The word “reform” is tendentious and “change” would be a better word. I have to confess on reading my pamphlet written 40 years ago that not all the arguments have stood the test of time brilliantly. I accept that there is more of a case than it appeared then for something like the German mixed system.

Some of the criticisms, however, that are made of our system, including one made by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, are fallacious. The noble Lord referred to the first past the post system as one that depends on making the winner someone with a plurality rather than a majority of votes. The criticism is commonly made about our system producing over 50 per cent of the seats with people who have perhaps only 40 per cent of the votes and this is not a majority. The point is made that the Government do not reflect majority opinion under our electoral system. The fallacy in this argument is that there naturally exists in public opinion such a thing as a majority. It is true that if you take any single issue—like whether people are for or against the euro, whether they are for or against privatisation, whether they prefer public expenditure to lower taxes—you can get a majority for any single proposition. But elections are not fought on one proposition; they are fought on four or five issues. Opinion polls show that it is much more difficult to get a majority for four or five issues at once than it is for one issue. So it is a wrong argument to say that you have an electoral system that produces a majority when there is not in fact an underlying real majority.

What is the magic of a majority anyway? In a democracy, power, even by a majority, must be exercised with restraint and with respect towards one’s opponents. All electoral systems create a majority in an artificial way. The first past the post system does it by converting around 40 per cent of the votes into 50 per cent of the seats. The alternative vote system creates a majority artificially by taking the second preferences of the bottom candidate and allowing those to determine the outcome. But the second preferences of the second candidate do not count. The second preferences are given undue weight, which is why I was able to quote in Second Reading what Winston Churchill said about the system when he called it the least scientific in which the most worthless votes for the most worthless candidate determined the outcome. That is the artificiality of the AV system in creating a majority. With PR, equally, majorities are created rather artificially because people take two or three parties that may have fought the elections on completely different programmes, as we well know, and add them together and call it a majority, although nobody actually voted for the programme of the Government. So the artificiality of a majority is something that has to be recognised before one pours all this criticism on first past the post.

[Lord Skidelsky]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I will simply point out that the movers of this amendment are not advocating any particular electoral system. It is neutral between the three choices. It is simply advocating a referendum in which those choices are given. That is all. Your points may be completely valid but they are not the point of the amendment.

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[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, I am tempted by the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, not only because I always find him an exceptionally persuasive and erudite man but for two other reasons. One is that it uses AV to choose the winner of the contest. No electoral theoretician would think this was a good way of choosing between these preferences. You would need some sort of Condorcet system which ran off options to find the one that emerged as having the most support rather than a system that simply eliminates a better choice. It does not work terribly well for this kind of referendum. AV has the great advantage of simplicity, which is also the reason I, for one, favour it as our national electoral system.

The other reason I am quite tempted by this amendment is that I have no doubt that the result of the referendum, whether it was AV or first past the post, would certainly knock out PR for ever. The power of the arguments that would be placed against a PR system for Britain would be so enormous that nobody would be tempted. As a political observer I add this point. The only people who would be speaking up for PR in such a referendum would be the Liberal Democrats. Liberal Democrat advocacy of anything at the moment is a certainty for its unpopularity. This is the party that has lost more than half the votes that were cast for it at the General Election. The thought of these poor lambs bleating round the country for STV, or whichever system they choose, would make it a certain feature of the result of the referendum that it went down the plughole. So for those reasons, I am tempted by the noble Lord’s proposal, though not perhaps for the reasons that he put forward.

I go back to where I started on electoral reform, about which I did not know a huge amount at the time, which was with the Jenkins committee. That committee’s terms of reference were written, in many ways wisely, by the party of which I am a member. The terms of reference did not say, “Put forward a whole lot of possible options and discuss their merits as the electoral system for Britain”. Nor did they say, “Recommend an electoral system and we will have it”. They said, “Recommend the best possible alternative to first past the post to be put before the British people in a referendum”. I regret deeply that it was not put before the British people in a referendum at the time.

In the same way as the coalition is wise to put forward an alternative for the referendum, in writing the terms of reference widely in that way the Government were right about what a referendum can seriously manage to do. I think that I heard the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, correctly. He said that this was an abuse of a referendum. It is not. Let us face it: referendums have their strengths and limitations. They are quite good at resolving a simple question on which the political class is divided. The supreme example in my lifetime was Europe. The referendum of 1975 settled things, rightly or wrongly, for many years to come. There was no other way within our political system that it could have been settled because of the state of the Labour Party at the time and later the Conservative Party, which nearly blew itself apart over Europe. The voice of the British people came down clearly on a single alternative, which was to stay in, rightly or wrongly. That defused a bomb at the heart of the political system.

This is no disrespect to the British people, but I do not think it is reasonable to expect them to come to grips with the degree of complexity of choice such as is implied by this referendum, still less the choice that exists in real life. Imagine the kind of atmosphere that goes on during an election with claims and counter claims being made. Every time someone says, “This is more proportional”, the AV lot will say, “Ours isn’t more proportional”. You would have a cacophony, which even those who have been studying this subject for half their lives, such as me, would have difficulty disentangling. At least the option that we have before us would give the British people a clear choice to make and the arguments between AV and first past the post are not that complicated.

Moreover, as I said in an earlier debate on the Bill, in a number of years’ time people may think, “Well this has worked quite well. We would like to go further to a proportional system”. Or, they may say, “That was a big mistake. Let’s go back to first past the post”. They may say, like the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, “Never go back”, but that may show the inadequacy of the system that I thought he favoured. It is not a once-and-for-all choice. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, that there are other choices that could be made about our electoral system. They do not all have to be made in one jump at one time.

I now move on to the case made rather well by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont. The idea that there is something called a proportional system that has a unique set of features is completely without foundation. The differences between STV, the single transferable vote, between national list systems and between the additional member system as used in Germany and recommended in part by the Jenkins commission, are enormous. This calls for a proportional system but there is virtually no proportional system in the world. The only exception is Israel. I have talked to many people about electoral systems but I have yet to find a single person who thinks that the Israeli electoral system is ever other than a complete disaster. It allows for the representation of parties with only tiny members of votes who can then hold the polity to ransom in favour of their peculiar religious objectives. Israel is a disaster among democracies for that reason and, arguably, the current state of the Middle East is a result of that political system.

Other than the Israeli system, there is huge variety among more proportional systems as to how much proportionality. You can have a national list with thresholds, for example. It is a perfectly good system as long as you do not mind all MPs being chosen by their parties, the end of the constituency representative tradition in our country and the complete dominance of the party Whips over our politics forever more. You can have a national list system. STV is not designed to bring about proportionality at all, although it is a more proportional system. STV came out of the 19th century tradition where they wanted a greater emphasis on the character of individual Members of Parliament rather than on the party that they represented. If you look at the Irish STV system, what happens there is that the contest is not between parties but between individual members of those parties about who is the best representative of the people. You can make a case for that but it is not essentially the case for proportional representation, although it produces proportional outcomes. Additional member systems have a completely different set of characteristics again.

At this stage, one can hear the people crying, “Mercy, please. We pay you to sort some of these things out. Some of us think we pay you too much”.

[Lord Skidelsky]

Is the noble Lord not descending but ascending into discussing the strengths and weaknesses of different electoral systems? That is not the point of the amendment. The referendum will happen. The amendment is about adding another choice to the two being offered.

[Lord Lipsey]

I see that that is what the amendment would do. However, it adds not one choice, but a plethora of choices without defining what they are, all with completely different characteristics one from the other and having very little in common except that they can, just about sometimes, be squeezed into the rubric of proportionality. That is why this is not a suggestion that should carry faith.

When the referendum campaign comes, I guess that what will happen in the last few weeks is that those who are against any change will say something like, “If you don't know, vote no”. They will try to capitalise on people’s ignorance. Even those in this Chamber—and there are many sitting around me—who favour first past the post would probably rather it was not decided on that basis. They would probably rather the people took a clear view of the virtues of the electoral system that we have and the virtues of the alternatives and made their verdict on that, which we would all accept as the way forward. This is a recipe for an extremely blurred choice of ill-defined alternatives which is hard to explain and unfair to ask people to grapple with. It is made even worse because unless the referendum date is moved as a result of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, which we passed earlier, they will be grappling with this choice at a time when they are dealing with local elections, new mayors and, in Scotland and Wales, with the all-important question of what their national governments should be. This is a seductive amendment, but it is profoundly misguided and I hope therefore that the House will not countenance it tonight.

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[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I remember it well. On that occasion, I said that, if senators were elected for Scotland, for example, or for Wales, Northern Ireland or England, to a second Chamber, which was a Senate, they would certainly claim some legitimacy or might even claim a greater legitimacy. However, if the Lords continues as a revising Chamber, I would argue the case for proportional representation for that revising Chamber.

[Lord Skidelsky]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. As mover of this amendment, I point out that we are not discussing reform of the House of Lords at this point, we are discussing the amendment that has been tabled.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I had realised that and I will come to it in just a moment.

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[Lord Skidelsky]

I am grateful to all those who have taken part in the debate, particularly to the two Front-Bench spokesmen for the cogent and gracious way in which they summed up the issues that the amendment raised. I have four concise points to make. First, I very much appreciated the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lamont. He made a very powerful case against the alternative vote—he might even have persuaded me of its demerits—but I emphasise that the amendment was not about the merits and demerits of particular voting systems; it was designed to give people a choice.

Secondly, it was said that voting reform is not a subject of interest to the mass of the people; it is of interest only to the chattering classes. I think there are quite a large number of chattering classes in this country, and if you call them professional classes they may even constitute a majority. They are interested in subjects such as this, so that is simply wrong.

I am not convinced that ordinary people are incapable of understanding the principle of proportionality. I think that it is a very reasonable question to put and that people will know what you mean and how it differs from first past the post and the alternative vote.

Finally, no one addressed the issue I raised in my speech of whether a simple choice, of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, supported, is worth a referendum. Referenda ought to be preserved for grand issues of constitutional import, and a measure of this kind, which would make a marginal change in the voting system, is not worth a referendum. No one really addressed that.

Having said all that, I am very grateful. I do not propose to test the opinion of the House on this amendment, and I therefore ask leave to withdraw the amendment, but I give notice that I may return to it on Report. Thank you very much.

Amendment 16A (to Amendment 16) not moved.