Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Martin Horwood Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Many hon. Members who have been in this place far longer than I have spent much time fighting for democracy and against extremism. However, the AV system will help extremist parties. There is a possibility that BNP second preferences could decide the outcome of a seat. Imagine a scene in the future in which the Labour and Conservative parties are neck and neck in a particular seat. As we watch on television, the second preferences of the BNP are counted and ultimately decide who wins the seat. How would we feel as the BNP supporters cheer and shout? The idea sends a shiver down my spine.

As chairman of the all-party group for the promotion of first past the post, I can inform the House that we now have 90 members. Our role is to promote and protect the first-past-the-post system that has served this country so well for generations. In fact, we have too many voting systems in the UK, and I would like to see one tried and tested voting system only—the first-past-the-post system.

As chairman of the all-party group, I am in a difficult position. Do I go with my gut reaction and vote against this legislation or do I fulfil my obligations and loyalty to my party leader, our Prime Minister, and to the party?

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I disagree with, but respect, the hon. Gentleman’s support for the first-past-the-post system. Would he not welcome the opportunity to campaign for it and vote for it in a referendum?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I will come on to that point, but I recall listening to the Prime Minister when he came to give Conservative Members an insight into the negotiations with the Liberal Democrats. The deal breaker, as my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) said—and I read it over and over again so it is indelibly printed on my mind—was a referendum on this system. How on earth will that referendum help my constituents in Shrewsbury? I always refer to Mr. Roger Walker, my constituent who is dying of prostate cancer. For the last eight months, I have been trying to get him a special drug, abiraterone, to prolong his life. I have been unsuccessful to date, but I will not stop. How will this legislation help him to tackle his illness, which will deprive him of his life? It is the equivalent of watching Nero fiddle while Rome burns. We have so many problems in our country, yet we are being distracted by this ridiculous referendum, which is going to cost taxpayers between £80 million and £100 million. What an appalling waste of money, as my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) has said.

If the proposed system was used throughout the world, effectively and in a popular way, perhaps we should consider it, but it is used in only Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Australia. Only three countries in the world use it, and two of them, with all due respect, are rather small, minor powers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stuart Bell]

Times have changed since 1922, but it is a mystery to behold how we are in the current situation.

As one hon. Member has said, 72 Members wish to speak this evening. Early on in the debate, the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) made a remarkable and impassioned speech, saying that we should at least be thankful for small mercies. The small mercy was that the Bill is not a Bill for full-blown proportional representation. Tomorrow he should read the comments of the Deputy Prime Minister—who slipped it in very nicely—when he said that the Bill was a minimum requirement. The Government are not out of the woods on proportional representation, and someone should ask him—and we will ask in Committee—whether the Bill is the first stage on the way to proportional representation or an endgame.

[Martin Horwood]

indicated assent.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

indicated assent.

[Sir Stuart Bell]

There are nods from those on the Liberal Front Bench. This Bill is even more of a pig in a poke. What we are voting on this evening has not been made clear to the British public or even to this House. The Bill is the first stage on the way to a different system of voting. That is quite remarkable. We have to be careful, not just about what is before us, but about what is not before us.

The point has been made many times that the Labour party in opposition supported a referendum. We do support a referendum—we committed ourselves to it, and we are the only party that did. The Conservative party committed itself to first past the post. The Liberals wanted a different voting system: the single transferable vote system. The Conservative party said that it wanted to change the distribution of seats by 10%. The point has been made: why 10%? Why not another figure? However, that was the only element in the Bill before us that was actually put to the British people. Nothing else was. The Liberal party did not put the alternative vote to the British people—we did put a referendum on the alternative vote to the British people—and neither did the Conservatives. We therefore have a Bill before us that has no manifesto commitment in it from any of the parties.

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman seems to misunderstand the manifestos. Our manifesto certainly did argue for a more proportional system, but we are not in favour of making the best the enemy of the good. We still think, as we have often said, that the alternative vote is a better system than first past the post. He cannot possibly be under any illusion from the debate so far that the Conservative partners in the coalition would support a more proportional system, so he cannot possibly believe that the proposal is a stalking horse. The only party that supported AV was his.

[Sir Stuart Bell]

I have not read the Liberal party manifesto in detail, but I am aware that it advocated 500 seats in the present Parliament and a single transferable vote system. That is what was put to the people by the Liberal party—

[Martin Horwood]

indicated dissent.

[Sir Stuart Bell]

It is no good the hon. Gentleman shaking his head. The Liberal party fought the general election on a series of commitments. We are talking about a minor commitment that the Liberal party has abolished. The Liberals also had a commitment to get rid of five Trident submarines. That disappeared. They had a policy to ensure no further nuclear industry. That disappeared too. What we are seeing is part of the disappearing act of the Liberals, and then they come to the Floor of the House and say—

[Martin Horwood]

indicated dissent.

[Sir Stuart Bell]

The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. He should read his own manifesto and see what it says.

Let me ask the hon. Gentleman a simple question—does he believe in the doctrine of mandate? We have heard a lot about that doctrine tonight, so does he believe in it?

[Martin Horwood]

Do you?

[Sir Stuart Bell]

Yes, I do. That is why Labour Members support a referendum on the alternative vote. What we do not support is mixing this Bill with what should be in another Bill, as was said earlier, for the purpose of the redistribution of seats. That proposal gets rid of the requirement for public inquiries that enable all constituents of an area to put their views on the basis of history or geography. Such inquiries also enable local councils to put their point of view, but all of that goes.

I was interested to hear the statements made at the weekend by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister, who said that they were giving power back to the people. They are not giving power back to the people, they are taking it away from them. They are giving people no right to discuss how the seats should be distributed. They are offering the people either no consultation or a very brief consultation and they are allowing them no second opinion. If they can get their way, they are pushing through an Act of Parliament, which is effectively a gerrymander. The gerrymander has been mentioned several times in this House, and it is what we are discussing on the Floor of the House now. The gerrymander is having one Bill on an AV referendum, which we could support, another Bill on changing the distribution of seats, which is debateable, and putting the two together. The Government have done that because they knew that they could not get those measures through on their own. They knew that they would not get a Bill on AV through without the support of Labour Members because they knew they did not command enough support from their own Benches. That is why they mixed the two Bills together, giving rise to the agonising problems that we now see expressed by those on the Conservative Benches. Some say that they are not for the Bill or the AV referendum, but that they are obliged by their party to support it. If Conservative Members believe in the doctrine of mandate, they will not support the Bill.

The doctrine of mandate and the gerrymander go even further because we have a Prime Minister who says, “Well, I am putting this measure before the House, but I will not campaign for the alternative vote. I will be on prime ministerial duties.” Likewise, the Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal party will be on deputy prime ministerial duties and will go to the United Nations when his party meets in conference. He is not going to stand there and explain to his own party why he forged a coalition on the terms he did: he will take the plane instead. The Prime Minister will do the same, having put before the House the proposal for a referendum on AV—a proposal in which he does not believe, as he himself says, and on which he will not campaign.

We have a grotesque parliamentary situation here, in which the doctrine of mandate and the commitment to the electorate disappear and where the sovereignty of this House is impaired. This House exists to hold the Executive to account. That is what we are here for—that applies to Labour and Conservative Back Benchers—but Conservative Back Benchers cannot hold their party or Government to account because of this legislation.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

When introducing this Bill, the Deputy Prime Minister dressed it up as the beginning of new politics. Well, this is not new politics; it is old politics exercised at its very best or its very worst, according to one’s disposition. It is about the Executive—the Government of the day—seizing more power for themselves. Let us not be coy about this. That is what Governments do. Let us not be afraid of admitting that.

The arguments for reducing the size of the House of Commons by 50 are nothing more than very flimsy. We are told that cutting 50 Members of Parliament will save £12 million. Well, colleagues, that is what 350 years of settled parliamentary democracy adds up to—we are going to save £12 million. Why stop there? Let us get rid of 300 Members of Parliament and save £72 million. There may be many good reasons for reducing the size of the House of Commons, but saving £12 million is not one of them. We trot out this ridiculous figure to appease the headline writers in the Daily Mail and the tabloid press, and those journalists who work for The Daily Telegraph, which is just a tabloid in a bow tie.

What really concerns me about this Bill is the fact that the Government talk about reducing the number of MPs to 600, but there is no mention of reducing the number of Ministers. What the Bill does, then, is to increase the patronage of the Executive. There will be yet more incentive for my colleagues to be good little boys and good little girls. That is what drives the public mad—seeing MPs say one thing in their constituency and doing another thing here in the hope of securing ministerial preferment.

I would personally like to see 450 MPs in the House of Commons, but only as part of the separation of powers where we remove the Executive from Parliament. The reason we have 650 Members of Parliament, colleagues, is so that at any given time—in the last Parliament, for example—300 of our number have either Front-Bench or shadow Front-Bench duties. As three hundred of our colleagues were taking their orders either from the Prime Minister or from the leader of their party, it left a mere 300 to 350 of us to hold the Government to account. I am all for reducing the number of MPs, but only as part of a far wider package of proper political reform.

To colleagues on all sides of the House, but particularly to my colleagues on the Government Benches, I say that there is a danger of politicising the issue of boundaries, as this reduction in the number of MPs so nakedly favours my party. I know that the system up to now, by an accident of design, has favoured the Labour party, but if this reform is to carry weight and legitimacy, it must be seen to be fair to all parties, not to the naked advantage of one party.

I have already mentioned what the public hate. They hate patronage; they hate politicians doing deals in smoke-filled rooms. Now, I support the coalition because it was the least worst of the options before us after the May general election, but let us be in no doubt that the coalition was agreed in a smoke-filled room by a few very powerful politicians at the head of two parties. I did not have a great deal of say in the formation of that coalition. I had no say in what policies were included or what policies were discarded. What happened actually transferred power further into the hands of a political elite.

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman must make it clear to the House that he is speaking for his own party. In the case of the Liberal Democrats, the coalition was approved by a vote of the parliamentary party and the federal executive, and then by democratic vote of the representatives of every local party in conference assembled—and by a large majority.

[Mr Walker]

I am delighted that the Liberal Democrats had such a frank and open discussion and perhaps we can learn from that, as we are in the age of lessons learned.