Business of the House

Marie Goldman Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

Absolutely—I thank my hon. Friend for raising that. As she knows, violence against women and girls is a national emergency and tackling it is one of the key missions of this Government. I agree that this data needs to be brought to light and disaggregated.

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

I mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day by commemorating the sacrifices made not just by those who fought and fell in the second world war, but by those who continue to serve our country in our armed forces and all who support them, including their families, who often spend long periods of time away from their loved ones.

Last week’s local elections were the first time in history that the Liberal Democrats beat both the Conservatives and Labour at the same local elections. We are proud of the trust that voters placed in us, meaning that our party now controls more councils than the Conservatives.

Last week also saw some of the most widely divided results our country has ever seen. The winner of the West of England mayoral election, from the Labour party, took the seat with just 25% of the vote; put another way, three out of every four voters put their cross in somebody else’s box. However, the lowest winning vote share was in Cornwall, where the winner in one race—a Liberal Democrat—was elected with just 18.9% of the vote. Just seven and a half percentage points separated the top six candidates.

It is clear that we are witnessing the end of the traditional two-party system—[Interruption.] Like it or not, our antiquated first-past-the-post system simply is not designed to cope with a multi-party system—at least, not for those who believe in fairness, as I hope the Government do. Will the Leader of the House now grant time for the Bill brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) to be debated in full, and will she encourage all her colleagues across Government to finally support the proposed move to proportional representation?

[Lucy Powell]

I join the hon. Lady in congratulating all those who were successful in last week’s elections and in paying tribute to the many councillors and candidates who were not successful for their campaigning.

The hon. Lady raises some important issues about turnout and engagement in elections. We both have a political challenge to ensure that people are engaged in the debate and feel energised and enthused to take part in elections, but we also need to look at how elections are conducted. This Government are committed to bringing forward an elections Bill in due course, which will address some of these issues.