Elections: First Past the Post

Debate between Olly Glover and Karl Turner

Wednesday 24th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this debate, for her passionate opening remarks and for her courage and nobility in potentially being willing to sacrifice the North Korean-esque majorities that our party achieved in the recent local elections.

I fear that, given the heat, there would be frayed tempers if I made my speech about the relative merits or otherwise of alternatives to first past the post. Instead, I shall make the case for how change could make a major contribution to fixing our politics, because so much of what is holding our country back is one party or another—it does not really matter which one—having undiluted power, and not having other parties in government to be the voice of conscience, alternative ideas and challenge.

That is one of the reasons why we have yet to make progress on social care, despite innumerable reviews and commissions on how we should resolve that very challenging issue. As other hon. Members have said, first past the post has not succeeded in delivering political stability over the last decade, because we have had seven Prime Ministers in 10 years. We also see the phenomenon manifesting in other ways: stop-start decisions on transport or various Governments enthusiastically advocating for different devolution models, rather than as many of us as possible uniting on one.

When researching for this debate, I wondered what fuels our apparent fear of moving away from first past the post. Nearly all the other countries in the world that have that voting system are former parts of the British empire. That shows a positive thing about Britain in the sense that the empire and its legacy have helped to introduce democracy, or at least forms of it, to large parts of the world. However, some former members of the empire have found themselves able to make progress and move on. Australia and New Zealand are two countries that we greatly admire, and they have decided to ditch first past the post in favour of something else.

In the meantime, we have to ask ourselves whether proportional representation is really so bad. We seem to think it is not in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, so what is it about introducing a proportional voting system that has England trembling in fear and terror at the very idea? It is almost as if we think civilisation would end if England were to embrace some of these concepts. We are already seeing how parties can work together when there are fractured election results, as recent English council elections have shown that we have the capability to have multi-party negotiations and multi-party local governments. We should embrace that maturity and hope to have it in this place one day as well.

The current Prime Minister’s love of first past the post was shown in a remarkably clear answer when I asked him recently whether he thought it can still deliver strong and stable government. He gave me a three-word answer: “Yes, I do.” I suppose it remains to be seen whether the next Prime Minister, whoever they may be, will agree with him.

Looking to the future, as well as the prospect of a new Prime Minister and perhaps a new way of thinking on these topics, we do not need to debate which voting system to choose to replace first past the post. That is not the next best step; a national commission for electoral reform could properly look at the pros and cons of the options and think through the matter. We saw the support for that in the 143 signatories to an amendment to the Representation of the People Bill tabled by the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel): 81 Labour signatures, 48 from the Liberal Democrats and the rest from many other parties, though interestingly none from Reform UK, despite its past commitment to proportional representation. That might be another issue where it finds itself embracing establishment thinking, despite telling us that it is the radical saviour of our future.

For now, it is over to the Labour party, which is commanding a remarkable 18% support in opinion polls, to determine our future. [Interruption.] That is the polling average, I say to the hon. Gentleman speaking from a sedentary position. We should only look at polling averages, never individual ones. I conclude with a direct appeal to whoever is the next Prime Minister. There seems to be a lot of reporting on who that is likely to be but, as I have not notified that individual, I shall avoid naming them.

Let us hope that the expectation and hype around the possible next Prime Minister are justified, because this is about changing our politics for the better and for good. It is about embracing the most meaningful change for transforming our political culture: proportional representation. We need that for social care, political stability and empowering our region.

[Karl Turner (in the Chair)]

Thank you for the entertaining contribution, Mr Morrison.