Televised Election Debates

Debate between Peter Bone and Tommy Sheppard

Monday 7th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Tommy Sheppard]

Members have said in this debate that of course the British system is not a presidential system, so it is not just a matter of who will become the Prime Minister; indeed, we do not elect Prime Ministers in the election, which is constitutionally absolutely correct. For me, the purpose of TV debates is not just to say, “Who is going to be the next Prime Minister?” and to have some gladiatorial contest between the potential challengers for that position. It is a matter of saying, “What do we want the Government of the country to be? What are the serious issues they should adopt? What are their priorities? What is their general direction?” That is where TV debates can prove extremely useful, in educating the public and raising awareness of those very important issues, and having an independent commission would give us or it the opportunity to ensure that matters were conducted in a way that allowed that to happen, rather than this being seen as some sort of presidential contest.

There has also been a suggestion that somehow it is not quite right that Parliament should seek to make regulations for broadcasters and that it is up to them to cover politics in whatever way they see fit. The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk was critical of Sky, in particular, and the editorial judgments that it makes to cover its own campaign. There is already much regulation about the conduct and coverage of elections in this country. We have a very highly regulated electoral system, and quite right too, so that people are able to make a challenge if something is seen to go wrong. Therefore, the idea of Parliament seeking to regulate the broadcast coverage of an election campaign or any other political campaign seems to me to be entirely consistent with the fair and democratic process that we have of trying to ensure that all these matters are fairly regulated.

There was also a suggestion that somehow a national TV debate would undermine local campaigning. I am sorry, but I just do not buy that. In my experience, and as colleagues have mentioned, people do tune in to the TV debate, perhaps because of how it is presented as a television programme. But the effect of doing that is to engage them with the political process more generally. Having had their appetite whetted a little—perhaps “having been hooked” is the wrong phrase—they move on to take more interest in the local campaigns and to ask questions. Perhaps they even get involved; perhaps they turn up to hustings for local candidates as well. The two things can be perfectly symbiotic: one can encourage the other. Anything that we can do to stimulate political awareness and engagement will be for the long-term benefit of our democracy.

Returning to the question of the role of minority voices, it is important to stress—I say this to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone)—that this is no longer a two-party political system, if it ever was; there are third, fourth and fifth parties, and they have a right to be represented as well.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. The whole point of my Bill is to include a debate between the leaders of the smaller parties as well. I hope that the SNP will support the Bill, because it does include that provision.

[Tommy Sheppard]

That is welcome and important. In the country that I represent in this Chamber, the two major political parties—Labour and Tory—are lucky if they can command half of the electorate’s support between them. Almost half of the entire electorate places its allegiance with parties other than the two main parties in the United Kingdom. That needs to be understood and built into the process.

Before Christmas, when we had the shenanigans about the debate on what to do about Brexit—it was not meant to be an election debate—we had a situation whereby the SNP, the third largest party in this House and the second largest political party in the United Kingdom in terms of its membership, was likely to be excluded from a debate between the leaders of the Conservative and Labour parties, although it did not take place in the end. The situation was all the more bizarre—the shadow Minister might want to respond to this—given that the leader of the Labour party, as I understand it, has said that if there were to be a general election in the coming months, Labour would commit in its manifesto to implementing Brexit. It might do it differently, but it would none the less commit to implementing Brexit. Therefore, we were going to have a debate between a Conservative way of doing Brexit and a Labour way of doing Brexit, ignoring other voices, which do not want Brexit to happen at all, and conveniently ignoring the fact that opinion polls consistently show that a majority of people across the United Kingdom do not want Brexit to happen at all.

[Mr Bone]

Rubbish! The hon. Gentleman is making outrageous claims about how the British people would vote. Let’s face it: there was one referendum, the decision was made and your side lost. Stop moaning about it.

[Tommy Sheppard]

I am a democrat and I believe that in a democracy people have the right to change their mind, and it is quite clear that a very large number of people who voted for Brexit three years ago have changed their mind, now that they understand what it actually means. Leaving that to one side, my point is that before Christmas we were in danger of witnessing a debate between the leaders of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom where the alternative to Brexit was not going to be represented, so it was just as well that it did not go ahead.

A number of people will be concerned about the practicalities of how this can work, and how the uniqueness and idiosyncrasies of the British system can be respected. It should not be beyond our ability and wit to make this happen. In Scotland, five parties are represented in the Scottish Parliament and regularly there are five-way debates on broadcast television and other forums, which do not seem to present any great difficulty at all. Many other countries throughout the world have multi-party and proportional electoral systems, where it is usual for Governments to be formed on the basis of coalitions between a number of different parties. They have no difficulty in representing all the party views in televised debates. If they can do it, we should be able to do so as well.

I know that the Minister keeps getting sent out to this type of debate and that she has to say that this was not in the Government’s manifesto—I am sure it was not—so they are not minded to do anything about it. However, I ask her to accept that this should be an ongoing and open debate. I ask her to consider playing a role in stimulating that debate, and not to close her mind or her ears to the voices that say that we need to consider much better regulation, which has in fact become part of our institutionalised way of doing politics in this country. We might as well accept that and make it the best that it can be.