Draft Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2022 Draft Local Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 Draft Police and Crime Commissioner Elections and Welsh Forms (Amendment) Order 2022

Mark Fletcher Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 General Committees

[Alex Norris]

The Government Whip perhaps gets ahead of himself. I wonder how long we would have to stand in Parliament Square before we met a person who thought that addressing the issue before us was even in their top 50 priorities—a long time indeed, I suspect.

As we heard from the Minister, the draft instruments flow from the Elections Act, which the Opposition strongly opposed at all stages before it became law a few months ago, and we do so again today—it was bad law then, and it is bad law now. Indeed, the Act is the latest in a long line that have exhibited the very worst tendencies of this Government in recent years, including the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022—remember that one?—the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 and the Trade Union Act 2016.

Underlying all those Acts was a determination to strengthen the Executive at the expense of the legislature and by shrinking the civic space for those who oppose this Government, including through an often complete disregard for the views of those affected as the Government ran through their proposals. That was mirrored in the proceedings on the Elections Act, which had these measures shoved into it halfway through Committee stage and after Second Reading; indeed, Bill Committee members could not even ask witnesses for their opinions about them, because that moment had passed. That is not the way to make good legislation, and these provisions are not good ones. I hope the Minister will reiterate in closing that the Government will make good on the commitments made during the passage of the Act to provide proper post-legislative scrutiny, because the Act needs it.

The measures before us once again seek to solve a problem that we have not yet been able to identify. I cannot think of a point where strong concerns have been raised about the conduct of supplementary vote elections—that they were perhaps too confusing or that the outcome did not reflect the public will—and where there was therefore a compelling case for change. I cannot think of Mayors or mayoral candidates who have raised significant concerns, and we did not hear that from the Minister in his opening speech. For all the noise on the Government Benches, it was a Conservative Government that introduced police and crime commissioners and this system of voting for them. Metro Mayors were introduced under the Government using this system, so it was good enough for them previously. The system has worked; the case for change is weak, and it is a terrible idea.

Putting aside the partisan aspects of this, it is a terrible idea to set the precedent that we in this place can change electoral systems without talking to the general public. I ask colleagues on the Government Benches to think where that could lead. If they are resistant to electoral reform—and I think many of those facing me probably are—they should consider that the approach being taken today is completely out of line with how we would originally have done these things, and it opens a Pandora’s box. I am surprised the Minister is so keen to do so, and I hope he will reflect on that in his closing remarks.

I gently say to the Minister that there is an awful lot that his Department has not delivered: huge regional inequalities that its plans are too modest to address, a housing crisis that has been ignored while the Government have a roll-around with their Back Benchers, and local councils that have been withering away because of Government cuts. It is beyond belief that, with all that in the in-tray, the three nonsenses in front of us are the priorities. That prompts only one question: why are the Government doing this? Once again, it seems that they are doing nothing more than seeking political advantage and moving the goalposts to make life a little easier.

I understand why a preference-based system so discomfits the Government; they know that a huge portion of the British people, if given a second, third and fourth choice alongside their first choice of candidate, would not use any of them for the Conservative party of today. Perhaps it is better to remove that option, but this narrow pursuit of political interest is what political projects do when they are past their sell-by date, unable to tackle big problems and devoid of big ideas.

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

Can I just clarify whether it is now the Labour party’s position that first past the post is no longer the premier electoral system for UK elections?

[Alex Norris]

That is not the case that I have made. The case that we are making is that these systems have worked for these positions, and we do not believe that they ought to be changed. The irony is that, if we applied my Parliament Square test and asked people outside, “What are your priorities for your democracy?”, they would say that they would like a general election at the earliest opportunity—and we know why. I urge colleagues to vote against these instruments.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

I am pleased to serve under your leadership of the Committee, Mrs Murray. I rise briefly to raise a couple of points about the provisions.

These are quite ingenious ways of moving from one system of voting to another, and the details are extremely complicated to follow. However, there are helpful explanatory memorandums for each of the provisions, and I went to those to try to understand the details of the various measures that are being changed. I was particularly interested in the consultation process, which does not seem to have taken place. The explanatory memorandum to the Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2022 says that there is a statutory duty to consult under paragraph 12(4) of schedule 5B to the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. What did the Government do? They consulted the Electoral Commission—full stop. They did no further consultation at all, and we can identify fairly easily from the explanatory memorandum why they did not. Another reason, of course, is the politics of all this, which are always interesting. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North exposed some of that.

Some of the arguments developed in the explanatory memorandum are difficult for the Government to sustain. I want to probe why, in paragraph 10.3, whoever it was who wrote the explanatory memorandum on behalf of the Government says, “Well, we had a referendum, and people decided they did not want a change from first past the post.” However, the referendum was about the alternative vote—a different kind of proportional representation from SV, which is in place for the mayoralties. Why are we applying the lessons of a referendum about one system of voting to a completely different system of voting and saying that people have expressed a view? They have not expressed a view on SV, because they were never asked.

The truth is that, as the explanatory memorandum says, no consultation took place with the public at all. The Government decided not to bother. The Conservative party used to be the party that would protect and conserve the constitution. What the Conservatives are doing here is playing around with the constitution in a number of ways. I will come to my second point in a moment, but first I ask the Minister why that paragraph is praying in aid a referendum about one voting system to argue that we do not need to consult on a completely different voting system.

My second point—I know that you will listen to me carefully, Mrs Murray, and tell me if I am out of order—is that moving from the system we have is that probably no Mayor in the country will ever be elected with more than 50% of the vote. If we look at the 2019 North of Tyne mayoral election—I will develop the point in a second to show why it is relevant to today’s proceedings—Jamie Driscoll, who is an excellent Labour Mayor, was elected on a 32% turnout. However, in the first round he received only 33% of the vote, which means that only 10% of the electorate voted for him. One would imagine that that is what will happen under first past the post: a person with executive duties, making decisions about the nature of a region, will have been elected by only one in 10 voters.

[Mark Fletcher]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jon Trickett]

Let me just make the second point, and then the hon. Gentleman can come in.

I am not looking only at Labour Mayors; Andy Street in the West Midlands received 48% of the vote on a 31% turnout, but the truth is that, of the total number of people who might have voted, only 15% voted for him—[Interruption.] Has the hon. Member for Bolsover been told by his Whip not to intervene on me?

[Mark Fletcher]

No. Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jon Trickett]

I will give way with pleasure.

[Mark Fletcher]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I apologise for not thanking the hon. Member for Nottingham North for giving way earlier. I am slightly curious about how the hon. Member for Hemsworth feels Members of Parliament hold up when it comes to their electoral share, given that we are elected by first past the post. I am also delighted to point out—this was the point the Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar, was just making—that Ben Houchen did all right.

[Jon Trickett]

I will come to precisely that point. I was the leader of a great council—Leeds City Council—for almost 10 years under Mrs Thatcher and then under John Major’s premiership. I was elected under first past the post, but we had a parliamentary system, as we do here. The Prime Minister is not elected by the people; he or she is elected by parliamentarians, and it was the same with the council. I was elected as leader of the council by the councillors, who had been elected by the public. What we have here is a presidential mode of running local regions and councils, in the sense that we have directly elected Mayors—who are not really accountable to a council or a group of councillors and who are able to make executive decisions of some significance, often spending large amounts of money—elected by only 10% of the population. That is quite an issue, and it needed to be properly debated with the public.

We are back to the failure to consult the public. Why on earth did we not consult the public? Why on earth have we allowed a situation in which only one in 10 voters might vote for an elected Mayor, who will have executive decision-making powers of a kind that the Prime Minister does not have? Certainly, under the normal system of council governance, a council leader would not have those powers. That is quite a mistake.

In paragraph 12.3 of the explanatory memorandum, under the heading “Impact”, we find out that we can save money by moving from one system to another, but are we really going to put a price on democracy? The memorandum says that we will save £7.3 million by moving from one system to another. That cannot be a justifiable reason for changing the way we do things without consulting anybody in the country. I have major reservations about this. I remain to be convinced of the case for moving away from first past the post in parliamentary elections. Once we establish a system for setting up and electing what are effectively neo-presidential authorities, having tinkered with the British constitution, we should not change that system without at least speaking to the public. If we spoke to them, perhaps we would end up with more engagement.

My final point is not at all in the documents before us—you will probably rule me out of order, Mrs Murray. If the Government stopped this system of Mayors who simply operate with delegated powers and administrate decisions made by central Government, and if those Mayors were given real powers, we might get more engagement with the public and might not have to tinker with the electoral system.