Proportional Representation: General Elections
Debate between Richard Holden and Steve Race(4 days ago)
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Steve Race
It is not that it is okay, but we have introduced legislation that has essentially restricted many, many more people from voting than otherwise would have happened.
Steve Race
I will make some progress, if I may.
I am pleased that this Government have legislated to allow the use of the veteran’s ID card, and I ask that they look at a wider range of suitable ID, including train driver licences, in any future review. Preferably, though, we should return to the traditional British approach of not demanding ID to have access to a vote.
On the issue at hand, I want to recommend to colleagues the outcome of the Jenkins Commission of 1998, which designed an elegant solution to the issues that our democracy faces when it comes to representation. Jenkins, one of the great social reformers of this place to whom many of us still owe a great debt of gratitude, proposed a hybrid system that kept many of the benefits of first past the post, such as the strong relationship that an MP has with a defined and manageable area, but with additional proportionality through the additional member system. Constituency MPs would be elected through the alternative vote system to add choice into the system.
Versions of that system are now in operation for elections in the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Senedd and the London Assembly, so this is not theoretical and voters understand it perfectly well. This is proof that a Labour Government can and do deliver much-needed social reform and always has.
Although I do not support electoral reform in the sense of pure PR, I absolutely accept that politics is about priorities. This Government have a huge task to do—three things all at once, I believe, which is not something that many Governments have faced before. We must stabilise our public finances, get the economy growing in a sustainable way, and rebuild our public services. That is a mammoth task, but it is what the public demanded when they elected our party with a landslide last year. I can well understand that these issues take priority over time for electoral reform. I do not think that I could look my constituents in Exeter in the eye if I knew that we were spending much time—and it would be much time—in this place discussing how to be elected, rather than addressing their immediate concerns.
As I have mentioned, there is much that we can do to make the current system more democratic and accessible, so I support the call of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) for a commission to look into this issue and find a way forward. Therefore, although I remain an electoral reformer, I also welcome the Government’s current focus on supporting the development of a stronger economy, grabbing the opportunities that are on offer for my region, and delivering jobs and investment in places such as Exeter, while also working and legislating hard to fix our roads, end our homelessness and housing crisis, clean up our waterways and rebuild our health system.