Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

William Cash Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is impossible to predict what effect a new electoral system will have—[Interruption.] Well, many people have tried and they have come up with conflicting views—

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

The Deputy Prime Minister refers to the question of the most fundamental matters of our democracy. Does he not agree that one of those is that we subscribe to our manifestos?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As my hon. Friend knows, this Bill is the product of an agreement between the two parties in the coalition Government. It is by definition a compromise between our manifestos.

There are two major issues that we have to face. The first is the big difference between the sizes of many parliamentary constituencies, which has the effect of making some people’s votes count more than others, depending on where they live. The second is the widespread concern about first past the post as the means by which MPs are elected. Therefore, the Bill will require the independent boundary commissions to redraw constituency boundaries so that they are more equally sized, and it will pave the way for a referendum next May on whether to change the voting system for the House of Commons from first past the post to the alternative vote.