Wales Bill

Siân C. James Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

Well, it might be a strange system, in the sense that I am not the greatest fan in the world of proportional representation. The hon. Gentleman knows that, because when I brought in the changes to allow the voters of Britain to choose between the status quo electoral system for this House and the alternative vote system, I made it very clear that although I was facilitating the referendum, I was a strong supporter of first past the post.

However, the decision was taken by the Labour party to have a mixed system in the Welsh Assembly, and we have supported that system. It is perhaps not where I would have started if I had been inventing the system from scratch, but it is what we have. It does have a range of consequences. It has the range of consequences that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North alluded to. Some of the regions are quite large. It is therefore possible to have disconnect between voters and the elected. By the nature of list systems, people are elected because of the party that they represent, not based on any of their individual qualities. So, to take the specific point raised by the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), I am not sure I buy the concept that when people are elected on a list system, if someone loses it has necessarily been a vote against them rather than a positive vote for one of their opponents. [Interruption.] Well, it is a positive vote for their opponent.

[Mrs Siân C. James (Swansea East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Harper]

I will in a minute, but I will answer the point made by the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside first.

When one votes in an election—I had an exchange on this with the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain)—one puts a cross in a box on the ballot for a candidate. Now, I accept that part of one’s motivation may be that one thinks that the candidate is a wonderful person, but it might be dislike for the incumbent, or that one is making a range of judgments on whom one wants to govern the United Kingdom or, in the case of the Welsh Assembly election, Wales. I accept there is a mix of motivations, but even if one accepts the hon. Gentleman’s contention that if an incumbent constituency Member loses their seat—assuming that people’s motivation was wholly negative; that is, they voted for the incumbent’s primary opponent because they did not like the incumbent—and that Member subsequently gets elected on the list, the list simply reflects the party choice that voters made. It is the nature of the list that the person is elected not based on any of their individual qualities—the voter is not able to do that—but based on the party they represent. The fact that they may or may not have won a constituency seat is not relevant to the debate.

I think the hon. Gentleman is just throwing up chaff to obscure the fact that the previous change was a partisan change made by the Labour party, and the clause simply restores the position not to one that we created, but one that Labour made when it invented devolution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman says that, but I do not see that having a mixed system in which someone may be elected on a list and not be elected for a constituency raises any more issues than having a list at all does. It may be that he does not like having a list system and he wishes we did not have one, but we do, so we should try to make it work as well as possible. I think that the changes in the Bill are sensible and I wholly support them. I promised to give way to the hon. Lady.

[Mrs James]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman agrees that the public are very confused by the system. Comments in my constituency range from, “It’s not fair,” through, “Well, it’s getting elected through the back door,” to “They shouldn’t be able to get in in this way.” What does he suggest that the clause is saying to the democratic voting public of Wales, if a person can have two bites of the cherry if they like?

[Mr Harper]

Those are all perfectly valid criticisms of list systems where voters are presented with a party choice, rather than list systems where votes have the ability to order the candidates. The hon. Lady’s point on whether people have proper choices is a valid criticism of every list system in which the voter can vote only for the party and has no ability to rank candidates, because in such systems whoever is at the top of the list will almost certainly get elected regardless of whether voters think highly of their personal qualities, but I do not think it is a valid criticism of the changes in the Bill we are considering today.

Finally—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Opposition Members groan, but I have been generous in taking interventions. Had I simply spoken and taken no interventions, I would have been finished some time ago, but that would not have been the right nature of a debate in Committee on an important Bill, so perhaps we could have a little less chuntering from the Opposition parties.

I want to ask a question about new clauses 4 and 6, which were tabled by Plaid Cymru. I was a little confused, because new clause 4 states:

“Her Majesty may by Order in Council provide for the transfer of responsibility for setting the number of Assembly Members to the”

Assembly, which is consistent with the points made by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) in his earlier remarks on clause 1 about giving the Assembly more control, but new clause 6 would give

“responsibility for determining the system of election of members”

not to the National Assembly but to the Welsh Government. It is almost certainly the case that that is not what was intended and that it was intended to give responsibility to the Welsh Assembly.