Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Mark Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. I shall come to Ron Gould and his report in a moment, but she is right to say that he was not being patronising, but recognising a real issue.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

Just to exemplify the point, will the right hon. Gentleman consider Wales and the spectre of three elections being held there? We waited a long time for our referendum date from the previous Government, but it did not come. Now, under this Government, we are finally getting it. There is a prospect of three elections in Wales—the National Assembly referendum, the Assembly elections, and the AV referendum. What effect does he believe that will have on turnout, and does it not necessitate that at least one of those elections be held on the same day?

[Sadiq Khan]

The best that I can do for the hon. Gentleman is to quote from the evidence that the excellent Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform received, which said:

“There should be no distraction from the national assembly election. That is why we have agreed with other parties in the Assembly that our own referendum should not be held on the same day as the Assembly elections.”

The important point is that for very good reasons the Assembly has decided not to have its referendum on the same day as the election, because it does not want to blur the issues. It would be counter-productive for there to be three, or two, elections in the early part of 2011; it would be confusing and blur the issues.

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[Mr Dodds]

I am sure that the same could not be said of my hon. Friend. Doubtless at least one Liberal Democrat Member will seek to catch your eye, Mr Hoyle, at some point in the debate, and we all look forward to that contribution immensely.

Given that there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny and that the measure is being rushed through—that flies in the face of normal constitutional conventions about seeking cross-party consensus—and given that legislation will also be introduced on, for example, House of Lords reform, it is vital to take the opportunity tonight to vote down the proposal to hold the referendum on the same date as the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland elections.

[Mr Mark Williams]

I am delighted to be called at such an opportune moment. The hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) spoke of the purgatory that he has endured in the past few hours. As a Liberal, sitting here has not been the most pleasurable experience for me, either.

Let me start by dispelling the myth that I am either distinguished—the accolade that the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) bestowed on me; I was sitting next to my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), so it was a case of mistaken identity—or an anorak, which the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) accused me of being. Indeed, I am also not an agent of the forces of darkness, as suggested by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson).

I did not intend to speak, but, like other hon. Members, my conscience has been pricked by some contributions. I say, first as a Welsh Member of Parliament and secondly as a Liberal Democrat, that the debate has been powerful—a little one-sided, but none the less powerful—and it has touched on the legitimacy of the devolved institutions.

I remain enthusiastic about the referendum. The alternative vote system is not ideal—it is not the system for which my party has spent many years campaigning; that is STV—the single transferable vote. However, it is what is on offer. I do not believe that there were great conspiratorial discussions in the Cabinet Office or anywhere else when the coalition document was drawn up. Indeed, I know that there were not.

As a Liberal, I believe in government partly by referendum. We should not lose sight of that: whatever our view of AV, we are putting the matter to the British people. I do not accept that there has been a conspiracy. We have heard different evidence from different people about the effect of differential turnout and the alleged implications of the date.

I want to focus on three issues. The first is cost. The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) said that cost was a significant factor. Others dismissed that, but I would like to hear from the Minister about cost. I came here believing that it was a factor, but others have said that it is not, so I want to hear more.

Secondly, I want to acknowledge the comments of the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford. I know what my voters in Ceredigion and Aberystwyth will say when faced with the prospect of three elections in a year. They said it when we held the first elections for the National Assembly in the same year as the community council and county council elections. “Not more elections!” they said. I want to deal with that specifically when we consider turnout, because it is a concern.

[Thomas Docherty]

On the rare occasions when the Deputy Prime Minister has taken part in any sort of debate on the issue, he claims that this is the greatest reform since the Reform Act 1832, yet the hon. Gentleman suggests that it cannot excite the good burghers of his constituency. Which is it?

[Mr Williams]

The hon. Gentleman is being selective. The Bill is one part of a big package. We have not even started work on reform of the second Chamber. The Government will tackle a whole range of issues over a longer period. Have I, like the hon. Gentleman, had the biggest postbag on AV? No, I have not. It is important to galvanise opinion in this country by putting the question to the people in a referendum.

[Thomas Docherty]

On further reforms, would it have made more sense to have a proper constitutional debate, perhaps through a constitutional convention, and to put all aspects of the reform agenda into a single Bill, rather than rushing this Bill through, as the Government are trying to do?

[Mr Williams]

I have been in the House for the last five years and the hon. Gentleman has been here only five months, but he is answerable for the inactivity of the Labour party on those issues. The Liberal Democrats and our Government have taken the right stance. We need to judge the package over a longer period.

As for simplicity, it resonates strongly with people that they will be able to go out and get it all done in one go when they vote on that polling day. That is the most important point. However, on consultation with stakeholders, which the hon. Member for Glasgow South West talked about—my friends in the nationalist parties will agree with me on this—I deeply regret the extent to which my Government have not always been thorough in their dialogue with the National Assembly for Wales and the other devolved Governments of this country. They need to acknowledge that. I will be interested in what the Minister says about that in the context of the extent of consultation to date. The Government need to improve on that if they are to take the National Assembly for Wales and the people of Wales with them.

[Mark Durkan]

All hon. Members appreciate the remarks of the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams). We take both the sincerity of his criticism of his Government and his defence of the proposals, but we have not heard any supporter of the Bill answer this question: what is the imperative of 5 May 2011? Why the absolute insistence on that date? I think the Deputy Prime Minister will come to regret that as a serious episode of premature calculation. He somehow decided that it suited him for internal party reasons, and perhaps for the prospects for success in the referendum, to go for that date.

I fully recognise that Liberal Democrats did not want a Bill that did not contain a guaranteed date, which is why they will be suspicious of some amendments in the group. They will say no to some proposals because they would allow too much elasticity and too many other conditions to get in the way. There was therefore an imperative to include a date.

It was probably also imperative for Liberal Democrats to have a date in 2011, and probably one before next year’s Liberal Democrats annual conference, just as Second Reading of the Bill was scheduled conveniently before this year’s conference, so that they had a trophy and could say, “Look what we’re getting already! Look what we’re putting through!”

I understand those political needs—the Liberal Democrats needed to assure themselves and their activists that the Bill was real—but amendment 1, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and to which I have put my name, addresses and accommodates such imperatives. It would guarantee a date before the Liberal Democrat conference, but it would also ensure that the date was not in conflict with other important elections, such as the long-delayed and overdue local authority elections in Northern Ireland and the Assembly elections, which other right hon. and hon. Members mentioned. We have also heard that argument from Welsh and Scottish Members in respect of elections in their countries.

Amendment 1 offers Liberal Democrats the certainty of a date without the complications and conflicts that attach to 5 May. The proposal would also ensure, as others have said, that parties could duly observe the proper six-month referendum period, and that the Electoral Commission could properly monitor it, as per its responsibilities. Members should reflect on the fact that this will be the first test of the Electoral Commission’s handling of a full-blown, cross-UK referendum. It will be the first test of how it discharges its responsibility for overseeing the proprieties imposed on it by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. To ask the commission to discharge that role in the context of so many other campaign atmospherics, with various leaflets and materials being sent out in at least three areas of the UK, is too much.

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[Austin Mitchell]

I know that there are a thousand excuses for gutlessness, but that is just another one. The Liberal Democrats are going to have to live on a diet of their own words for the next few months. It was the leader of their party who called the alternative vote “a miserable little compromise” before the election. Now it is central to Liberal Democrat policy.

The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) is mistaken about the referendum in New Zealand. The first referendum, which I have discussed, gave the exact alternatives that would be given in our Bill. I want to make the case for proportional representation. We are working in a system that has become a multi-party one. Fewer people are voting for the two main parties, whose share of the vote has gone down from about 90% to about 60%. A multi-party system is in the process of being born, with nationalists, including Welsh nationalists, Liberal Democrats, the UK Independence party, and all the rest of it. We are trying to fit that within the constraints of a first-past-the-post system that works well only with two parties. [Interruption.] I forgot to mention the Greens—I apologise, but that is another indication of our multi-party system.

We cannot fit the burgeoning multi-party system into a first-past-the-post system, which works only with two parties. The question is still why did the Liberal Democrats, in pushing for a referendum—I congratulate them on securing one—not give people the real choice between a preferential system, an alternative vote and first past the post, as that is the choice that they have to make? I would want them to choose the preferential system, but it is not up to us. It is not my views that are important, or those of Government Members—it is the views of the people. That is all that we are asking: let us consult the people on a system, and let them have their say. Every Member here thinks that the system that elected them must be the best system in the world, but that is not important. We are prejudiced witnesses, and we should give the people the power to speak. That is all that our amendment does.

[Mr Mark Williams]

May I reiterate to the Committee and to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) that the Liberal Democrat party still believes in STV, has done so for years, and will continue to do so? However, the reality is that the advances that the Bill represents will be jeopardised if we adopt the amendment on STV. The agreement before us was made on the basis of a referendum on AV. Without that, we will not secure a referendum, so there would be no referendum at all. That is the reality of the debate. We still believe in STV, and this is a staging post to something towards which our party will still work, but there is no majority in the House for STV. Without that majority, there will be no referendum.

[Mr MacNeil]

We have just heard the Liberal Democrats say that they still believe in STV. I wonder whether that belief stretches 5 or 10 yards to the Lobby. I would wager that it does not go very far at all.

In the moments that are left, I want to speak to an amendment that I tabled.