Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

I have had no indication what would happen in that situation. I assume that the Government would accept such an amendment, because they cannot afford to delay the Bill. I would point to other amendments in the group that refer to the referendum period and are consequential on it.

The real reason for avoiding the combination of polls with referendums is fairness. Whatever the merits of combining referendums with elections throughout the referendum constituency, all voters should at least be treated the same. It is obvious from the date on the table at the moment that voters are being treated differently in different parts of the country.

When the then Prime Minister, Mr Blair, was contemplating holding a referendum on the euro on the same day as Welsh and Scottish elections, Professor Larry LeDuc, one of the world’s leading referendum academics, made it clear that he could not recall one similar case of such differential treatment of a referendum electorate. I challenge anyone to find an example of a serious country putting a serious decision to its people in a referendum when there is such different treatment of electors.

Professor LeDuc thought that the UK proposal was probably unique and volunteered this opinion:

“The effects…would not be uniform across the country. It would likely produce considerable distortion with regard to turnout, the nature of the campaign, and a variety of other matters that might be difficult to determine in advance. The referendum, if it occurs, would be a different sort of political event in England than it would be in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I can’t think of a case parallel to that anywhere else.”

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

There is an obvious reason for that. In the United States, where it is common practice to combine referendums with a series of elections, there is a system by which almost all elections are held on the same day in all states. That situation does not exist here. Parts of our country have devolved Assemblies and others do not.

[Mr Jenkin]

We have come to a strange pass when Liberal Democrats hold the United States up as a model of democracy. Another point is that the United States has not changed its voting system. It has used the one it inherited from this place: the plain, straightforward, vanilla, winner-takes-all system. Perhaps that is why US democracy works so well. In fact, I do not know any academic authority that would hold up the US as a model of running referendums, and I will come back to that in a moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davidson]

I think that the hon. Gentleman has just entered the Chamber, so he may have missed my saying that we agreed that we would not take a position; otherwise I would be speaking to that position. However, we took the view that it was important—indeed, vital—that political stakeholders in Scotland should be consulted by somebody, because that had not been done by the Government, so we gave people the opportunity to express their views. I am glad that in such a short time many strong views were expressed. To be fair, some people expressed one view and other people another, but there is an opportunity for all those views to inform the debate. The hon. Gentleman will agree that it is regrettable that we have not had longer to discuss those views.

Speaking as the hon. Member for Glasgow South West, I was initially agnostic about AV, and in many ways I remain agnostic about the principle of AV. I oppose the single transferable vote and other forms of proportional representation, but I could live quite easily with AV. I am much more concerned about the context in which the proposal has been introduced. It was in my party’s manifesto, so it must be a good thing and should be supported. [Interruption.] It is early in the Parliament. I am in favour of the principle of a referendum, but it was never proposed in my party’s manifesto that it should be held on the same day as the Scottish elections. There has been some interesting illumination of why that is the case by the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis).

I want to make my views known on two points: why we are having the referendum, and why so soon. As the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) made clear, the Conservatives have agreed—I am sorry if I am not quoting her exactly—that the referendum was the price they had to be pay for tackling the economic crisis. To put it in simpler language, it is the reward to the Liberals for supporting Tory cuts. That is basically why this is happening. Cuts would not go through and would not necessarily command a majority in the House if the Conservatives did not have the support of the Liberal Democrats, who have signed up to a vicious set of proposals on cuts and public expenditure to obtain the reward of a referendum on AV.

The referendum is coming soon, because the Liberals trust the Conservatives no more than the rest of us, and they want to make sure that they are getting the reward sooner rather than later, lest they are simply fobbed off and it does not arrive at all. They do not want to be taken for mugs, so they want to make sure that the opportunities for the referendum are pressed quickly before negative publicity attracts too much opprobrium. In those circumstances, the fact the AV referendum is taking place as a reward for Tory cuts means that certainly in Scotland big campaigns will be run on the basis of saying no to the Tory cuts, no to the coalition’s dirty deals, and no to AV.

The way in which that will spill over into the Scottish elections will undoubtedly be beneficial to my own party. It will be immensely damaging, thank goodness, to the Liberals. The Conservatives, who are essentially irrelevant in Scotland, will not suffer much damage, because they cannot go much further down. No one can argue in those circumstances that holding the referendum and the elections together will not contaminate the Scottish elections. Admittedly, that benefits my party—and I look forward to that—but it means that the AV referendum will not be conducted on its own merits.

Returning to the lack of consultation with stakeholders, I am genuinely shocked by the fact that the coalition Government chose, as far as I am aware, not to ask anyone in the Scottish Parliament or in civic Scotland what they thought of the idea of having the AV referendum and the Scottish parliamentary elections on the same day. That was entirely a top-down decision. We have heard a great deal about a new politics. [Interruption.] I am not sure whether that was an approving heckle, or just a heckle, but I accept that the Member concerned is demonstrating that he is still alive. The fact that there was no consultation or discussion at all very much harks back to the old politics of drive and control, and shows immense contempt for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and—[Interruption]—the Northern Irish Assembly; I knew that there was another one. To add insult to injury, it is my understanding that the AV referendum will be described as the senior poll to be given priority when decisions are made about counting, publicity and all these other things.

To hold Scottish parliamentary elections on the same day as the AV referendum is bad enough, but we have been told that those elections will be subsidiary to the referendum, which no one particularly wants. It is not the first choice of anybody, as far as I am aware. It is coming about simply because of the shabby, shoddy and disgraceful deal that I described earlier. That really is an insult—

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

It was in your manifesto.

[Mr Davidson]

We were never promising it on the same day.

Let me deal with the question of contamination. Many previous speakers have indicated the way in which they believe the debate will be contaminated in Scotland because of the spill-over. As time goes on, the main focus of debate will not be on the minutiae of the AV referendum; it will be on the impact when the AV referendum is lost by the Liberals. Will the coalition split? What price will they then demand as a reward, because what they got as a reward before will have come to naught? That will be a matter of immense focus, certainly in Scotland, and I am sure elsewhere. The collapse of the coalition only a year into a Government will be of considerable significance, not only in Scotland, but in Britain and across the world. That will be the main focus of attention and will overwhelm the coverage of the Scottish election.

Some of my colleagues, particularly the Alliance Member, the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long), spoke about the difficulties of joint campaigning on the referendum. While MPs never usually take the fact that something has been said already as an excuse not to repeat it, on this occasion she has said it perfectly adequately so I will refrain from doing so. But there will also be—a point that she did not touch on particularly—confusion about costs. There will be two elections in Scotland, one for the first-past-the-post seats and one for the list seats, and then there will be referendum. People involved in both those elections will be campaigning on behalf of their parties in both elections and on the yes and no side, and there will be cross-cutting cleavages. The process of allocating expenditure will be almost impossible, I should have thought.

Many of us in Scotland are aware—I am glad to see in his place the right hon. Member for Ettrick, Lauderdale and Tweeddale—is it?

--- Later in debate ---

There are two parts to our proposed question. The first part asks people whether they want a change from the current, first-past-the-post system; and for those who do, the second part offers the options of the alternative vote, the additional member system, and the single transferable vote, to be listed in order of preference. Our amendment is needed, because it is contradictory for the coalition to be talking about electoral reform while seeking to offer little more than a Hobson’s choice, between AV and first past the post.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I have every sympathy with the hon. Lady’s amendment and the argument that she is putting forward. However, before she starts to attack the coalition, she must surely recognise that there is no possible coalition of parties that we could join in carrying through the present House of Commons a referendum that would allow people the choice of the single transferable vote, desirable though that would be, and her one-Member party in this House certainly cannot achieve that objective.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but perhaps I am more optimistic than he is. I hope that the power of argument might just wake up our fellow Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alan Beith]

The hon. Lady is making a constructive contribution, but she must face the fact that, if she were successful in carrying her amendment, there would not then be a majority in the House in favour of a referendum at all. That is surely not an outcome that she would want.

[Caroline Lucas]

I find that incredibly disappointing and defeatist—[Interruption.] Well, it might be said that, had the terms of the coalition agreement been different, and had different priorities been at the top of the list, we might not have found ourselves in this situation. I believe that the role of politicians in this House is to do what we believe to be right, and I believe that it is right to give people this choice. That is what will be respected by the electorate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I think that my hon. Friend is anticipating the referendum campaign. Tempted though I am, he would not expect Ministers to be drawn into a debate about the merits of different electoral systems at the Dispatch Box. That will take place when we have the referendum. However, he made a good point about the need to engage in a good debate about the issue. The Electoral Commission did say in its research findings that some members of the public had trouble with language when it came to the use of the words “Parliament” and “House of Commons”. Thinking back to the previous debate and the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), we in this House should consider members of the public who do not take an enormous interest in, or spend a great deal of time on, these issues, important though we think they are. We need to make sure we address those people, and not just ourselves.

It is very important that the referendum question should be clear and simple to understand. The Government welcome the commission’s helpful report. I have read it carefully and, based on the evidence that the commission presented, we have decided to accept its redrafted question.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I must, on the grounds of language simplicity, draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the Welsh version in Government amendment 231. Although my understanding of Welsh is not as wide and deep as I would like it to be, I have not often seen the abbreviation “DU” used for “United Kingdom” in Welsh. I therefore wonder whether it would be at all familiar to most voters, and whether it would not be better to spell out “United Kingdom” in Welsh.

[Mr Harper]

I am very interested in my right hon. Friend’s views. Having a great deal of respect for the Welsh language, and being frank about my inability to speak it, I did not want to abuse it by reading out the Welsh version of the question. I did not intend to do that, and I am not going to do so. I have taken the precaution of talking to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales. He is a Welsh speaker, and he has consulted a number of colleagues. We do not think there is a problem with the language. The Electoral Commission did highlight one potential problem to do with the yes/no question and words such as “should” and “should not” in Welsh. It felt that there was a risk but that, on balance, this was an improvement. We have taken its analysis on board and we have accepted its drafting rather than changing it, because if we were to change it we would have to go through another process of assessing the accessibility.

The Government consider that the new version is no less neutral than the previous one. We do not think it alters in any way the choice that the question puts to the public, but we do think it is clearer and easier to understand, which is why we have accepted it. Our amendments therefore insert the new question into clause 1 in English and Welsh, and it is replicated in English only in the form of the ballot paper, which is addressed in schedule 2. This is supported by members of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and I hope the House will support it as well.

Let me make a point about amendment 7, to which the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) spoke. It refers back to the point to which the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) drew attention. They were both right that many Liberal Democrat colleagues support either the single transferable vote or some other form of proportional system, whereas most Conservative party colleagues do not. The nature of a coalition Government is that we have to reach a compromise, however, and the compromise we have reached is that Conservatives have agreed to put the choice to the public and Liberal Democrats have had to accept that although they have a vote on a system that they prefer to first past the post, that is not everything they would have hoped for. It has been rightly said that there is not a majority in this House in favour of putting a referendum question to the public on proportional representation, and I think Liberal Democrat colleagues have been entirely sensible in reaching a compromise—as, I think, have Conservative colleagues as well. We on the Government Benches are clear that we want to put this question to the public. I agree with the hon. Lady that the public, not politicians, should choose the voting system. We are going to give that choice to the public and see whether they want to stick with the existing system or change it.