Proportional Representation: General Elections

Rachel Gilmour Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

How we vote and how we select who governs this country is, by nature, a topic of huge national significance, and one that is too often pushed to the sidelines. I have been a member of the Liberal party, now the Liberal Democrats, since I was 17. Fighting for a fairer system of electoral representation is key to my political mooring and my party’s fight for a fairer democracy for the British people.

I am the mother of four children. I have one daughter. She is as clever as she is beautiful. Last year, she produced a report on voting systems across the world, including in Russia, South America, Africa, America, the European Union and here. Her analysis showed incontrovertibly that proportional systems are much fairer, including for women, those who are disabled and those from an ethnic minority. This is not just about the bar charts or the figures; it is about real fairness. In the most recent election, we saw a Government elected to power on the lowest vote share for over 20 years, with the lowest proportion of the electorate’s support since 1918. Just 20% of registered voters cast their ballot for the Labour party. Four out of five voters either voted for somebody else or did not vote at all.

One of the so-called merits of the first-past-the-post system is that it is designed to deliver a clean winner, but this is illusory. Reaching back through the annals of British electoral history, we see that 1931 was the last time a governing party secured over 50% of the vote share. The towering majorities secured under our system were delivered not on the basis of a representative vote, but through the quirks and idiocies of a flawed system. When first past the post does not deliver a towering majority, it delivers exactly the sort of instability that it is designed to avoid. Did the 2017 election produce a clear winner, leading to a strong and stable Government? The former Member for Maidenhead could answer that one for us.

For too long, the parties of red and blue have taken the British people for granted. In last summer’s general election, Labour and the Conservatives returned their lowest combined vote share in the age of universal suffrage, yet their combined seats still dwarf those of all other parties in this place. Some 57.8% of voters had to settle for an MP they did not vote for, including my constituents. That hardly seems right or fair. The evidence of a broken system is clear for all to see. What on earth has happened to true majority rule?

Another argument in support of the first-past-the-post system relates to its simplicity. I agree that our democratic process should be simple, but what is simpler than people being able to vote for the party that they believe in, rather than feeling that they have to vote tactically? The system is not fair, and it is not proportional. I and my colleagues in my party will continue to fight hard to raise awareness about its unfairness, not because it is the politically expedient thing to do—as has been pointed out, we did rather well under first past the post at the last general election—but because it is the right thing to do.

If anyone’s argument against a fairer electoral system is that they might disagree with whom the British people vote for, I would ask them to consider why they make such an argument—because it is not out of service to the British people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

I am grateful to Members from all parties for their thoughtful and interesting contributions to the debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this important discussion and the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) for introducing the debate in the way that he did.

For us as a nation, this is an important discussion to have. We may not recognise that we should be proud of the peaceful and democratic way that we govern ourselves, despite our various, often heated, disagreements, as hon. Members might have seen earlier in the debate. Unlike the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), I am not afraid—

[Rachel Gilmour]

On that point, will the shadow Minister give way?

[Paul Holmes]

I will give way.

[Rachel Gilmour]

I thank the shadow Minister for giving way. It does at least show that he has some sense and knowledge of what democracy means.

[Paul Holmes]

I thank the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) for that wonderful intervention. Members should know that she and I are very good friends.

Unlike the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, I am not afraid to stand up for the courage of my convictions and for the arguments that I will make. Unlike Members of the Liberal Democrat party, I am prepared to take interventions and have a genuine debate,