Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Stuart Bell and Brian H. Donohoe

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stuart Bell (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski). Having listened to what happened in that parliamentary Conservative party meeting—a meeting of the 1922 committee, which was formed on the breakdown of a coalition Government way back in 1922—and heard that the deal breaker was a referendum on the alternative vote, I wonder why the Conservatives made a deal at all. They were eight short of an overall majority. They could have easily formed a Government and would have had a big majority in the House over other parties, although not an overall majority. They could have easily formed a Government and taken to the country the question of how we deal with the deficit. That the Conservative party should sell itself to the 1922 committee by going back to 1922, when the Conservatives pulled out and the coalition failed, and then go back into a coalition on that premise—a premise that is so false and empty, even from the Liberal party, which fought for a different system in the general election—is a wonder to behold.

We are now in the odd situation where we have one part of the Bill, which should be one Bill, on whether there should be a referendum on the alternative vote, and another on changing the distribution of seats.

[Mr Donohoe]

Was my hon. Friend aware that in the ’20s, the Liberal party in government—would you believe?—was opposed to any form of proportional representation?

[Sir Stuart Bell]

Times have changed since 1922, but it is a mystery to behold how we are in the current situation.

As one hon. Member has said, 72 Members wish to speak this evening. Early on in the debate, the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) made a remarkable and impassioned speech, saying that we should at least be thankful for small mercies. The small mercy was that the Bill is not a Bill for full-blown proportional representation. Tomorrow he should read the comments of the Deputy Prime Minister—who slipped it in very nicely—when he said that the Bill was a minimum requirement. The Government are not out of the woods on proportional representation, and someone should ask him—and we will ask in Committee—whether the Bill is the first stage on the way to proportional representation or an endgame.