Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I am second to no one in this place, even to the hon. Gentleman, in my respect for the Scottish Parliament. I am a Conservative who always believed that we should have had a Scottish Parliament, and I am delighted that we have one. However, I hold the Scottish Parliament in as much contempt as I do all our political elites, in that we do not necessarily reflect the interests, concerns and priorities of the people whom we represent when we discuss politics itself and how elections are conducted.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Is the hon. Gentleman’s argument that politicians are not good at deferring to the people when they argue about politics? That is not exactly a case for saying that politicians should campaign in elections on the day when the electorate are choosing the democratic process that gives them their power of choice in the future.

[Nick Boles]

Absolutely not. That is actually the contrary argument. The argument should be that if somebody can present me with evidence that people other than politicians, stakeholders, returning officers and anyone involved in all the other bureaucratic paraphernalia of getting ourselves these jobs would prefer—

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[Mr Williams]

I have been in the House for the last five years and the hon. Gentleman has been here only five months, but he is answerable for the inactivity of the Labour party on those issues. The Liberal Democrats and our Government have taken the right stance. We need to judge the package over a longer period.

As for simplicity, it resonates strongly with people that they will be able to go out and get it all done in one go when they vote on that polling day. That is the most important point. However, on consultation with stakeholders, which the hon. Member for Glasgow South West talked about—my friends in the nationalist parties will agree with me on this—I deeply regret the extent to which my Government have not always been thorough in their dialogue with the National Assembly for Wales and the other devolved Governments of this country. They need to acknowledge that. I will be interested in what the Minister says about that in the context of the extent of consultation to date. The Government need to improve on that if they are to take the National Assembly for Wales and the people of Wales with them.

[Mark Durkan]

All hon. Members appreciate the remarks of the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams). We take both the sincerity of his criticism of his Government and his defence of the proposals, but we have not heard any supporter of the Bill answer this question: what is the imperative of 5 May 2011? Why the absolute insistence on that date? I think the Deputy Prime Minister will come to regret that as a serious episode of premature calculation. He somehow decided that it suited him for internal party reasons, and perhaps for the prospects for success in the referendum, to go for that date.

I fully recognise that Liberal Democrats did not want a Bill that did not contain a guaranteed date, which is why they will be suspicious of some amendments in the group. They will say no to some proposals because they would allow too much elasticity and too many other conditions to get in the way. There was therefore an imperative to include a date.

It was probably also imperative for Liberal Democrats to have a date in 2011, and probably one before next year’s Liberal Democrats annual conference, just as Second Reading of the Bill was scheduled conveniently before this year’s conference, so that they had a trophy and could say, “Look what we’re getting already! Look what we’re putting through!”

I understand those political needs—the Liberal Democrats needed to assure themselves and their activists that the Bill was real—but amendment 1, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and to which I have put my name, addresses and accommodates such imperatives. It would guarantee a date before the Liberal Democrat conference, but it would also ensure that the date was not in conflict with other important elections, such as the long-delayed and overdue local authority elections in Northern Ireland and the Assembly elections, which other right hon. and hon. Members mentioned. We have also heard that argument from Welsh and Scottish Members in respect of elections in their countries.

Amendment 1 offers Liberal Democrats the certainty of a date without the complications and conflicts that attach to 5 May. The proposal would also ensure, as others have said, that parties could duly observe the proper six-month referendum period, and that the Electoral Commission could properly monitor it, as per its responsibilities. Members should reflect on the fact that this will be the first test of the Electoral Commission’s handling of a full-blown, cross-UK referendum. It will be the first test of how it discharges its responsibility for overseeing the proprieties imposed on it by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. To ask the commission to discharge that role in the context of so many other campaign atmospherics, with various leaflets and materials being sent out in at least three areas of the UK, is too much.

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[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

I am trying to follow the hon. Gentleman’s argument and wondering how his constituents might feel about different types of election being held at the same time. I do not understand why he thinks that they are not capable of understanding that. Can he not give them the credit for being able to comprehend the difference?

[Mark Durkan]

I fully recognise that the electorate in my constituency and elsewhere in Northern Ireland can cope with having different elections on the same day. Irish people can cope with elections and referendums on the same day, as we have seen in the south of Ireland. However, the electoral body in the south learned the lessons from that and pointed out the serious issues that arose, including in relation to programmes that were meant to be about the referendum campaign, with a representative from the yes side and one from the no side. But some parties involved in the election on the same day were not included in the broadcasts, and that caused serious controversy about the balance of the coverage. The legislation that this House has previously passed about the obligations in referendums and election campaigns is already difficult to observe, but it will be even more difficult to observe it when both are held at the same time.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

If the argument is that the elections and the referendum should be held on the same day, surely we should also have the vote on extra powers for the Welsh Assembly on the same day. However, the Liberal Democrats in the Assembly are not arguing for that. They want it one way for the referendum and another for that vote.

[Mark Durkan]

My hon. Friend has punctured the argument and identified the inconsistency of the Liberal Democrats, and I shall not add anything further on that.

As legislators, we will have to think about these difficulties. We must look at previous legislation and at the situations that might be generated by what we do tonight. It is not about saying that the public cannot cope with different choices, but about the media and political systems and the Electoral Commission itself. Many of us have asked questions in the past about how well the commission does its job of monitoring elections and election expenditure, and the bye balls it appears to give to some people who cannot complete returns or who put in returns of very little expenditure that completely contradict their evident and expensive publicity material. So it is about ensuring that the elections are fought free from controversy and confusion about referendum campaign spending, and about ensuring that the campaign takes place in conditions that are most conducive to full and proper debate.

The hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) made an important point about cross-party campaigning. One of the benefits of a referendum campaign that perhaps enables people from different parties to unite and join forces to commend or resist a reform is that it offers an almost unique opportunity in Northern Ireland for cross-party campaigning and a public debate. That will be completely eclipsed if the referendum takes place against a backdrop of Assembly and local government elections. The imperatives of party politics and the party vote will always outweigh the democratic debate about which is the better voting system.

I believe that in Northern Ireland we can have a debate about the merits of the alternative vote, and if later amendments succeed and we have a bigger choice in the referendum, so much the better. However, we could at least have a debate in Northern Ireland about the alternative vote, which would be one way of freeing us from the tragedy of the first-past-the-post system. The latter condemns us to sectarian head counts at Westminster elections, because people have to vote tactically either for the nationalist likely to beat the Unionist or the Unionist likely to beat the nationalist. People who want to vote for other reasons and express more sophisticated political preferences and endorsements find themselves trapped in that sort of sectarian head count by first past the post. If people do not want to be freed from the sectarian headcount, they can make that choice, but at least let us have that honest and open debate on a cross-party basis. We will not be able to have that debate if this referendum takes place on 5 May 2011. If that is what the Liberal Democrats want to condemn Northern Ireland to, so be it, but the rest of us want better—not just for next year, but for the future.

Some Members have raised issues about differential turnouts. I am less concerned about that. If I am concerned about anything, it is that some Conservative Members who do not have to contend with elections of party colleagues in their constituencies will turn up and have time to spare campaigning on the referendum in Northern Ireland. They could be prolific and very active in the referendum campaign, while the rest of us would be preoccupied with election campaigns. The issue of differential attendances can work more than one way, which is why hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), are right to say that we should suspend our calculations of how one day might favour the vote on one side or another. Let us just say that we want to ensure as little confusion and controversy as possible. If we go for the day proposed, there will be confusion, controversy and allegations of undue conduct and improper spending, which will only bring us back all over again to the expenses scandal and the contamination of politics by money.

[Hywel Williams]

We have had a very good debate, and I will not detain the Committee with repetition. However, I would like to thank the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who defended the Government’s position.