Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Having sat here for rather a long time, I am pleased to have had the benefit of hearing the many wise heads who spoke before me. I am glad to be following the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) because I completely disagree with her. I think that the Bill is totally about democracy. I also disagree with a number of my hon. Friends on this matter. Before the general election, people in this country were clamouring for change—to be given more of a voice and more of a say in how they voted. They certainly wanted the cost of politics and the number of MPs to be reduced. I really believe that there is a democratic requirement to hold the referendum in the interests of promoting our democracy.

That is one reason why I will support the Bill. The other, which is also very much in the interests of democracy, is that we forged a coalition Government in the interests of the country. Had we not done so, we might have limped on in minority government for a few months, or, worse still, the British public might have ended up with the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) still as their Prime Minister in a Lib-Lab coalition. Those two outcomes would have been a disaster, so we had to form a coalition and the Bill was the price that we had to pay. For that reason, too, I believe that we should support the Bill.

Having said all that, when it comes to the referendum, I am a huge advocate of first past the post, and there are three key reasons for that. First, only first past the post provides a clear choice of candidate. People clearly state their preference and get no other alternative, so somebody that they might quite like or have heard of does not end up with their second or third preference vote. They end up with a single Member of Parliament to whom they can relate in their own constituency. Any other system of voting introduces an element of lottery, in which some people vote for only one candidate and some vote for five. If enough vote for five, even when they do not know their fourth, third and second choices, a candidate can be elected to Parliament whom nobody really wanted but who was the lowest common denominator. That is a disaster, and first past the post does not deliver that.

A second reason why I am a strong advocate of first past the post is that we generally end up with a strong Government with a single manifesto. We have already seen, to the cost of many of us, and will no doubt see even more in future, what the downside of coalition government is. It is surely this Bill coming before Parliament, which is the price that has had to be paid to bring together a strong and workable Government. It was not in our manifestos and the people did not vote for it. In fact, although a lot of people have said that no one cares about AV or first past the post, that is not strictly true. A long-standing Conservative party member in my constituency resigned his membership card recently, and why? Because his Conservative Government are now putting in place policies that were not in our manifesto and for which he did not vote. That is the price that we pay for coalitions, and anything other than first past the post will inevitably lead to a greater propensity to coalition Governments.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Does not first past the post lead to some curious results? For example, the Conservatives in Scotland got 17% of the vote but one Member of Parliament. Meanwhile, Labour secured a third of the votes in Scotland and got two thirds of the MPs. Surely that must be wrong.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, but we have debated the matter at length this afternoon and evening and all agreed that first past the post is not the perfect system. No system is, but nevertheless first past the post offers the chance of a clear preference. The person who is the most popular wins a seat, rather than somebody’s second or third choice or the person they hated least. That is the benefit of it. Voters get a single manifesto and can then hold their Government to account on it.

That leads me on to the third important point about first past the post, which is that we get the ability to sack a Government when they have reached the point when we no longer want them. In Germany, for example, where they have long had proportional representation, every time there is a general election they wake up with the same people involved in government, but just with the deckchairs moved around slightly. The same can happen with the alternative vote. The day after polling day in this country, we could have ended up still looking at the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. That would have been very bad for democracy, and I believe that first past the post is the right thing for this country and for our democracy.