Local Government Elections (Referendum) Bill [HL]

Lord Tope Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. It is particularly appropriate today because, as she mentioned, she and I were first elected to the London Assembly in 2000 in the first, I think, elections conducted in England under a proportional representation system. Before I forget, I should declare my interest, limited though it is, as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, for introducing the Bill. It will come as no surprise that the Liberal Democrat Front Bench of course welcomes any debate on a system of proportional representation. I also have to agree with the noble Lord when he said—I think almost exactly this—that parties are all too often addicted to the system that enables them to win. That is undeniably true, but I want to show from personal experience that it is not always true.

I was a councillor in the London Borough of Sutton for 40 years, up until the last elections in 2014. For the last 32 years, Sutton Borough Council has been run by the Liberal Democrats. At only one council election since 1994 have the Liberal Democrats won less than 80% of the council seats—almost literally a one-party state, perhaps. Yet to my distress, suburban south London, particularly with a majority of people voting leave in the EU referendum, is not natural Liberal Democrat territory. I have to say I am still looking for such territory but, wherever it is, it is certainly not in the London Borough of Sutton.

Thirty-two continuous years of running the council, most of the time with an absurdly large majority, is a huge vote of confidence in the way Liberal Democrats have run that council over that period. Yet at only two elections in that time have the Liberal Democrats gained more than 50% of the votes—never mind anything like 80%—in the borough. That really is not fair to the minority of residents who would prefer to be represented by Conservative or Labour councillors—or even Green councillors. At the last London borough elections, in 2014, the Conservatives got 30% of the vote in Sutton but only nine of the 54 councillors—barely half what their vote, proportionately, would have entitled them to. Labour polled 15% of the votes, yet it has not had a single councillor in the London Borough of Sutton since 2002.

When the Labour Government were experimenting with various pilot schemes for increasing turnout, voter interest in elections and so on, I was leader of the council and proposed that Sutton would be willing to conduct the next London borough elections in Sutton under an STV system, provided that the London Borough of Newham—then and now I think 100% Labour —and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, then a Tory stronghold, although we will wait to see whether it still is, would do the same. I was not too surprised—this bears out the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe—that neither the then Labour Government nor those two councils were prepared to do that. But I hope that gives a small doubt to the noble Lord’s understandable assertion of addiction to the system that helps you win.

My concern is not so much that the first past the post system is unfair to the Conservative and Labour parties in Sutton—frankly, they are more than adequately compensated for that all over the rest of the country—but that it is unfair to citizens everywhere, who should always be our first concern in judging any electoral system. First past the post is notoriously unfair to the citizen, with some votes carrying vastly more weight than others, and indeed far too many votes carrying no weight at all. That is my first principle in considering this issue.

The second principle is that the system by which representatives are chosen in our democracy cannot be left simply to the whim of currently affected incumbents, who clearly have a very partisan interest in the outcome. That, I think, is the point being made by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, and a weakness, if I might say so, in his Bill. Leaving aside the shortcomings of referendums and the difficulties of getting a required majority there, if the final choice is left to local authorities, as he himself has said, in most cases—but not all—they have the greatest vested interest of anyone in keeping the system that got them elected in the first place. Hence we would prefer to see a reform that does not in any way give a deciding voice to those already entrenched in local authorities. We believe that, if a reform of this significance is urgent, effective and popular for one group of citizens, it should be not discretionary but universal.

That brings me to a third principle: the basic building blocks of our representative democracy in the United Kingdom should be broadly the same, unless there are important local circumstances which make that undesirable in that particular place. The huge success of the introduction of effective proportional representation for local authority elections in Scotland is not just an irrefutable argument for the extension of STV to England and Wales but a strong case for uniformity. Scottish electors have a very much better chance of seeing the candidates they vote for being elected—on average 75% of such candidates, compared with around 50% in the English counties. If in Scotland they exercise further preferences, it rises to 90%. It may take a generation, but over time that will mean that many more people will vote for positive reasons because of what they want, rather than voting for negative reasons, against what they do not want. Too often these days, people go to the polling stations, if they go at all, inclined to prevent something happening rather than to encourage it to happen. That state of mind is not in the interests of healthy democracy.

Why should only some citizens of the UK have a far more democratic system of representation, giving many more voters there a direct influence on the result of elections? Just as we believe that the extension of the franchise in Scotland to 16 and 17 year-olds has been an unqualified success, so we believe that the benefits of electoral reform should be available to all citizens of the UK. English and Welsh voters deserve just as much to enjoy the benefits of a more representative democracy. The STV form of PR in Scottish local elections has been an excellent pilot for the rest of the UK and has been a huge success by any objective judgment. Northern Ireland has benefited from the advantages of STV for over 40 years and Wales is currently examining it. Why should England and English voters be left behind? I hope the Bill stimulates the Government into action, but I am not too optimistic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Balfe]

That simplifies one thing. I was going to say that many years ago I remember arguing in the Labour campaign for electoral reform that it was a very good idea as it would enable us to get rid of some people. I seem to remember I mentioned a certain Jeremy Corbyn and I was told, “Don’t be silly, he will never get anywhere in our party”. But, of course, as a serious point, one of the advantages of proportional representation is that it sharpens up parties. You see this in the European Parliament, where I sat for 25 years: both the left and the right have effectively gone off into their own parties, where they have influence but seldom power. This has its down side, as we saw recently in the German election, where, to an extent, the parties come too far into the middle, but it also has its up side in that it gets rid of some people who, as you might say, you would not want to take home for tea with mother. However, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey.

I take all the points. You cannot draft a Bill like this that is perfect. That is why I drafted something very short which gives the Secretary of State the job of doing things. At the back of my mind I was mindful of the fact that since 1999, which is some way away, only 10 Private Members’ Bills introduced into this House have become law anyway, and none in the last two years. As I was drawn as number 15 in the ballot, I did not exactly think that I was storming towards legislative glory with the Bill. It was therefore drafted simply to initiate a debate.

I am pleased to hear the comments of my good friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. Overall, my view is that some form of proportional representation would be an advance on the present system. The reason for giving some choice in the Bill was because everybody falls out about what the best system would be. However, I find it difficult to believe that a series of one-party states is the best way to run local democracy—it is as simple as that. I accept that the Greens may have won in Brighton, but they have got nowhere in my city of Cambridge despite regularly getting well into double figures in the vote. They always get between 15% and 20% of the vote, and they deserve some seats. Incidentally, the Conservatives normally get about 25% of the votes, and they also have no seats on the council, which is at the moment divided between a resurgent Labour Party—it will not lose in Cambridge until Labour wins in government; then, of course, it will all start to swing back again—and the Liberal party, which used to control the city but has gradually slipped downward. But this is not local democracy—it is just a reflection of what happens nationally.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Tope. I am glad that his party has had 32 years in control of Sutton, but I am not sure that that will last much longer either.

[Lord Tope]

Last time we gained seats.

[Lord Balfe]

We will see.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked for a sharper Bill. I think I have dealt with that issue. You can never be right; a sharper Bill would of course have missed a lot of things out. He mentioned being clear about the system. However, we use all sorts of systems. I vote in building society elections on one system, for my club election on another, and for the Royal Statistical Society executive on another. Ballots regularly drop through my door inviting me to vote by post for the various bodies I am in, and between them they use many different systems. Funnily enough, I manage to understand them, as do a lot of other people who vote using them. Therefore a lack of understanding is not the problem.

I listened with interest to what the Minister had to say. I appreciate that the Government take a very different position from mine—indeed, it has not escaped my notice that there is not a single Conservative speaker in support of this Bill. I recognise that it is a minority sport. It was a minority sport in the Labour Party and it is even more of a minority sport in the Conservative Party; none the less, it is an idea whose hour is coming. As we move forward, I think that we have to say, “Who has adopted first past the post recently? No one. Who has moved to systems of proportional representation? Quite a lot of people”. There is invariably a demand for that in new systems.

I thank noble Lords and conclude my speech by asking the House to give the Bill a Second Reading. I look forward to it being the law of the land, although probably not in my lifetime.