Public Health
Layla Moran Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the metaphors of the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) and, indeed, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I agreed with much of what they both said, and with what many said before them.
First, to reflect the tone of so many of the emails and letters that we have been getting, people are fed up. They are completely fed up. There are also devastated, but I find that the letters that hit me hardest are the ones that are now almost pleading. They are pleading with the Government to get it right. There is a local bar that anyone who might have gone to Oxford would know well—I will not name it—that is about to go under. Its owner said that the tier 2 restrictions on pubs and bars are going to be absolutely devastating, and that “a company is simply not an economic organisation; it is a group of people who strive together, and the new measures will put all of our company at risk.” We are now at the point where the Government do not have the confidence of the people who are writing to me, and that is deeply concerning.
I have concerns about the restrictions, which is why I and the Lib Dems will not be supporting them today, but it is not because they are wrong in and of themselves. We need restrictions, but the package around them has not been working right. The restrictions are predicated on what I believe is a false dichotomy: that it is health or wealth, that it is lives or livelihoods, and that there is a balance between the two. It could work if we had all the variables in front of us, knew what every single one was and kept them in a fine balance in real time, but the uncertainties are so huge that, as we have seen from the tier system so far, it does not work. The Secretary of State himself said at the Dispatch Box that tiers 1 and 2 do not really work. They do not bear down on the virus; they stop the spread from happening as fast. Tier 3 seems to hold steady, and tier 3-plus and lockdown does depress the virus.
To gamble with such a system—I would love to see the evidence that shows that it is going to work—at a time when we still do not have the vaccines is a big mistake on behalf of the Government. My plea to them, in the short time that I have, is for more transparency. Please can we have transparency from Silver, Gold and Covid-O and about all the decisions that are being made to local areas, not with them?
I think the tier system is an attempt at localism from a Government who do not seem to understand fundamentally what that is. Localism means that when there are difficult decisions to make, they need to be made as close to the people they affect as possible. Please do better.
Covid-19: Winter Plan
Layla Moran Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD) [V]
As an Oxford MP, I echo the Prime Minister’s congratulations to the Oxford Vaccine Group on today’s fantastic news. Will he join me in further congratulating it on being shortlisted for the NHS parliamentary awards?
I chair the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, and we have repeatedly heard in the course of our inquiry from experts and scientists who are concerned that a prospective vaccine, as welcome as it may be, is not, in and of itself, an exit strategy. Will the Prime Minister meet me and a cross-party delegation from both Houses to discuss our forthcoming recommendations, so that we can create a covid-secure UK that includes testing at the borders and locally led test, trace and isolate systems?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady is entirely right about the vaccine—it is wonderful news, but it is premature to say that it constitutes, on its own, an exit strategy. That is why I have insisted throughout this afternoon that it must be accompanied not only by NHS test, trace and isolate, but by new types of testing, plus the tough tiering that we have had and that we will have when we come out of this lockdown. The way forward is to make those things work together—to make the tiering work in tandem with testing—so that people get a test with a view to reducing the restrictions under which they, we and she are living. Get a test and help to kick covid out—that is the way forward.
Oral Answers to Questions
Layla Moran Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I chair the new all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, and we are leading a cross-party rapid inquiry to ensure that we have learnt the lessons from the UK Government’s handling of this pandemic before a second wave. We have had over 900 submissions so far, including from bereaved families, from people who have long covid and from professional bodies such as the British Medical Association and the NHS Confederation. We will be releasing recommendations as we go, throughout the recess. I simply ask: will the Prime Minister take our recommendations seriously, with a view to acting on them when we come back in September?
The Prime Minister
Of course, I would be very happy to look at whatever the hon. Lady’s group produces.
Electoral Reform
Layla Moran Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
It seems that debates on potential electoral reform are a bit like buses: wait a long time for a chance to discuss it, and then, with the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill last week, two opportunities come along at once. I welcome the opportunity to engage with the Minister on this topic, as I indicated on Second Reading of the Bill last week. I believe that this is the first debate on positive reform to our electoral system in this Chamber since 2016. As we reflect on last year’s general election and the challenges that the UK faces in relation to the covid-19 pandemic, I believe that revisiting this topic and the impact that the current first-past-the-post system has on democracy is valid.
During that Second Reading debate last week, I mentioned a statistic: for every one vote it took to elect an SNP MP at the last election, it took 33 votes to elect a Green one. The Green party polled over 800,000 votes and ended up with only one Member of Parliament: the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). The Brexit Party, polling over 600,000 votes, got no MP at all. Its biggest impact as a party was in standing down in seats, effectively preventing those who wish to vote for it in those seats from being able to do so.
I do not want to drown Members in statistics—I know that the Government have been in trouble with the Office for National Statistics recently—but I do want to highlight the following. The Government have an 80-seat majority in this House, but they did not receive the majority of votes—far from it, in fact. They got 43.6% of the votes, but due to first past the post, they now hold 56% of the seats. I do not know what is more remarkable: the fact that the Government have a majority in Parliament, despite not having a majority of votes from this country, or the fact that we have grown so used to this disproportionality that we rarely comment on how remarkable it is.
If Government Members—were they here—to say, “Well, at least the largest party in the Commons is the one with the most votes,” I would agree. After all, in 1951 and 1974, the party with the most votes did not end up with the most seats. The electoral maths is very clear. First past the post does not do a good job at all of representing voters’ preferences or the will of the people, as some like to call it.
One of the arguments in support of first past the post is—to quote a previous Conservative general election slogan—that it provides strong and stable governance. The last 10 years have demonstrated that this is far from the case. We have a broken system. It is unfair, unrepresentative, and undermines the legitimacy of our democracy and, indeed, the UK itself. We often take pride in the fact that this Parliament is the mother of Parliaments, but we should not let our pride in our heritage blind us to the areas in which it needs improvements. We should not uphold tradition at all costs, particularly when it prevents us from making the progressive changes that will have a positive impact on people’s lives, or prevents Members from properly representing their constituents. Every election that we hold under first past the post runs the risk that we end up with a Government who did not win a majority of votes, impacting on the legitimacy of our whole democratic process. This is a scenario that should worry anyone and which we should be acting pre-emptively to avoid.
Although I take pride in our heritage, the reality is that the vast majority of democratic countries have chosen not to follow our system. Exactly the scenario that I have been talking about—the party with the most votes not becoming the Government—happened in New Zealand in 1978 and again in 1981, and it set that country on the road to changing first past the post in 1997. It was abandoned in Ireland, Australia, Malta, South Africa and Cyprus. Across Europe, 40 out of 43 countries carry out elections using some form of proportional representation.
The Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, and the Northern Ireland Assembly, use forms of proportional representation in their elections to those bodies. When we have the chance to start from scratch, first past the post is never anyone’s first choice. Surely now, following two divisive referendums in the past decade—again resulting in winner takes all—and with the challenges facing us going forward, we require a different kind of politics from the adversarial two-party politics that is the natural result of first past the post. Last week, the Prime Minister criticised the Leader of the Opposition for not working in a constructive way, but this is exactly the way in which our system forces politicians to operate—across the Dispatch Box, two sword lengths apart.
As the Scottish National party’s vote is concentrated in the 59 Scottish seats, the situation that first past the post creates there is even more serious. In December, 45% of the vote for the SNP equated to 80% of the seats. The adversarial nature of things becomes even more stark when two parties each claim to be the voice of their people, and I am pleased that the SNP is in agreement with me that we need a more proportional system and we need it to be found soon.
As we seek to recover from the impact of covid-19, other challenges—most crucially, our response to the climate emergency—remain. Such challenges will not be solved by one side or way of thinking. They require co-operation, mutual trust, welcoming a diversity of thinking, and an ability to set aside our differences and work together for the common good.
Some commentators have observed that states with the perceived best response to coronavirus so far are those with women leaders. The underlying factor is that these are countries with proportional systems and a focus on pluralistic decision making, such as New Zealand and Germany. Every single country with more than 40% of female representatives in its legislature has a proportional system. The current system is inhibiting the progress that both the Government and the official Opposition say they want to make.
It is not only our governance that is weakened by first past the post. Our voting system results in the permanent disenfranchisement of millions of voters, creating persistent minorities, and a real and legitimate sense of anger alongside the harm to the regions and the devolved nations. How depressing is it that, for a great number of people in this country, being represented here in this place by someone they actually voted for feels like a treat?
In last week’s debate, many MPs spoke about how much they love their constituencies and the pride that they take in representing them. I have personally enjoyed the tradition of the maiden speech, referring to my constituency and its attractions as well as acknowledging the work of my predecessor. But as Members of Parliament, we do not actually represent our constituencies; we represent the people in it. In my constituency of North East Fife, the majority of people did not vote for me in December. Tactical voting probably played a part in the result, but my job now is to represent everyone in my constituency, and we must acknowledge that many feel unrepresented as a result of our system.
Surely we should all like to be elected on the basis of a positive voter choice, as opposed to being the least worst option on the ballot paper, as is often the case. Surely the proliferation of tactical voting websites and electoral pacts at the last general election suggests there is something fundamentally wrong with the way we elect people to this place. We talk about the collapse of Labour’s red wall without critically asking whether it is right for any party to believe it has the right to any seat or its electorate. We do however comment on the extra attention that these seats and their new Conservative representatives expect to get from the Government. That suggests that, as previously safe Labour seats, where the same party had won every election, people’s votes there were worth very little and the parties could therefore ignore them. Only when a seat becomes marginal does it seem to matter.
As I pointed out last week, it is strange that the Conservative manifesto recognised that votes mattering equally is a “cornerstone of democracy”, yet is blind to the huge disparities in our current system. It was pointed out to me by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) that she has more than 20,000 more electors in her constituency than I have in mine, but this unfairness is because our system is based on defining boundaries and areas for a single Member to represent under first past the post. Some of the criteria being set out in relation to boundary changes undermine the arguments for single-Member constituencies by diluting the identified community links that many argue are the main benefit of first past the post and risking further disenfranchisement in an already broken system.
One other promise in the Conservative manifesto was to have a constitution, democracy and rights commission in the first year of the Government. Will the Minister update us on the plans for that commission, including its scope and potential membership? Fair votes are just one spoke on the wheel of reforming our broken politics and there is lots more to be done; I have not touched on the House of Lords or the fact that England needs to follow the reforms of the other devolved nations, including Wales, where, from last week, 16 and 17-year-olds are now eligible to vote. I find it strange that only in England are 16 and 17-year-olds felt to be incapable of exercising their democratic rights.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
My hon. Friend is giving an incredibly powerful speech, at an important time in our democracy. I used to be a teacher and I can say from experience that 16 and 17-year-olds are just as capable of understanding the complexities of the political landscape as anyone else and quite often ask very insightful questions. From her experience as a Scottish MP, does she agree that it is time England followed suit and gave 16 and 17-year-olds the vote?
Wendy Chamberlain
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and entirely agree with her. As I say, only one of our four nations seems to feel that its young people do not have that insight, and we should absolutely be giving them that opportunity.
Countries around the world are moving forward beyond fair votes, with democratic innovations such as citizens’ assemblies or participatory budgeting programmes. We need to look at participatory democracy better empowering local communities and groups. We have seen multiple marches and demonstrations in the past few years, including, most recently, this weekend. People protest when they feel they have no other option in terms of making their voices heard to demand change. It is tempting to be comfortable with the current system—after all, every Member here has benefited from first past the post—and I understand the reverence in which Members hold this place, but we best revere it when we acknowledge that its practices are letting down the very people who elected us to represent them. We should not let warm feelings get in the way of cold, hard reality.
Chloe Smith
I do understand that point. I personally would use a similar argument to apply to one’s vote getting rather lost in a national system that did not give accountability directly to a representative.
Allow me to pause in responding to the arguments about the voting system and turn to a couple of the other points that the hon. Member for North East Fife made. I will cover three manifesto commitments. First, in the Conservative manifesto, which was chosen and has been given the privilege of being turned into action, we committed to retain the first-past-the-post system. That concludes that section of my remarks.
Turning to votes at 16, and if I may, combining this with the points made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) about how very many young people want to be involved in politics, I am passionately in favour of young people being involved in politics. However, I do think there are many ways to do that—there is not only the question of the voting age; there are lots of ways to engage people in politics. As I have mentioned, the manifesto commitment from this Government was to retain the franchise at 18 years old. That is because of an argument of consistency within the other services and aspects of public citizenship. A person below the age of 18 is treated as a minor, for example, in both the foster care system and the criminal justice system. They cannot attend jury service, buy alcohol or be sent into action in the armed forces, and they cannot own property, gamble and so on. There is a wide range of life decisions for which Parliament has judged that 18 is the right age across the nation.
Layla Moran
Surely there is an inconsistency, however, in the way that 16-year-olds are treated across the four nations. Can the Minister not see the inconsistency in that position?
Chloe Smith
I understand and recognise the argument, but this Parliament represents the UK parliamentary voting franchise, and it is that that I am speaking about. As it happens, I also fully support the ability of the devolved Administrations to make decisions within their remits for themselves.
I have one moment to finish off on the commission on the constitution, democracy and rights. As the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) mentioned, it is there in the Queen’s Speech, it was there in our manifesto and we think it is very important to do so. I will be pleased to bring forward further details for the hon. Lady and for you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but at this point I think we adjourn.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Layla Moran Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Kemi Badenoch
May I reassure my right hon. Friend that this is something that we are looking very closely at? We are working with partner organisations, exploring targeted support options for disadvantaged people while schools remain closed and in the summer break, and considering how best to support pupils to rapidly catch up when schools reopen. He should know that we have already taken prompt wide-ranging action to help schools and parents support all young people, publishing a list of online education resources for parents, launching a new online academy, and working with the BBC to create a package of TV and online materials to support learning at home.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The Minister for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch)
As someone who is affected by this issue of ethnic minorities and the disproportionate impact they suffer from covid, I am glad to see that it is being taken seriously across the House. I am confident that both Parliament and the Health and Social Care Committee will have the opportunity to scrutinise the Government and hold them to account on this in due course, and this is where cross-party work will be most effective.
Layla Moran [V]
I and the Liberal Democrats welcome the review that Public Health England is undertaking. I thank the Minister for her response to my question. I hope it means that she will come to the House to make a statement when we finally have the outcome of that review, but there are some things that we can do right now to better understand the disproportionate impact of covid-19 on the BAME community. One of those would be to ask a question on ethnicity on the NHS coronavirus symptom checker, which would surely give us the data that the review needs. Will she commit to speaking to the Department of Health and Social Care on adding that question to the survey?
Kemi Badenoch
I thank the hon. Lady for her letter on this issue in April; the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is aware of it, and I am sure she will receive a response from him in due course. It is important to remember that Public Health England is conducting an independent and expert-led review, and we trust Public Health England to collect the information appropriately, as it sees fit.