Devolution (Scotland Referendum)
Debate between Sadiq Khan and Pete Wishart(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Sadiq Khan
I have said that we need to address the issue of how English MPs scrutinise legislation.
I called this a Westminster stitch-up; actually, a No. 10 stitch-up is what it was.
Sadiq Khan
There is some noise from my left which I will try to ignore in order to make some progress.
Instead, we need a wholly radical solution to the country’s challenges that is part of a much wider and deeper reform of the way power is distributed in our country. We need a different way of working that involves, and is led by, the people and civil society—not top-down solutions imposed by Westminster, but bottom-up solutions driven by the people, by communities and by civil society.
Sadiq Khan
There are examples of this being done well. Ireland’s post-2008 constitutional convention is a model worth exploring. Scotland’s pre-1997 convention laid the strong foundations for long-lasting constitutional change.
Sadiq Khan
I did not say there was not an issue; I have said there is an issue, but I am also saying there are other issues as well, and rather than us imposing a solution, we should be speaking to the people who are raising those concerns. There are other issues as well. How can it be that we have a Parliament that is fully appointed—completely unelected—with 85% from the hon. Lady’s part of the country and London? That is unacceptable.
Pete Wishart
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and thank him most graciously. At least the Leader of the House devoted 14 minutes of his 45-minute speech to Scotland, but the right hon. Gentleman has barely mentioned Scotland. The Scottish people who are watching this debate—and very many of them are—will be horrified by the way it has become about nothing other than English votes for English folks. Will the right hon. Gentleman now talk about Scotland—about the vow and what has been promised to the Scottish people?
Sadiq Khan
I dearly hope the people of Scotland are watching the behaviour of the Scottish National party Members of Parliament during the course of this debate.
As I said, there are examples of this being done well. Ireland’s post-2008 constitutional convention is a model worth exploring, as is Scotland’s pre-1997 convention. In fact, the Lib Dem manifesto in 2010 called for a constitutional convention to address this very issue. There are blueprints of success out there, and we would be foolish to ignore them. That is precisely why the Leader of the Opposition has committed Labour to launching a constitutional convention, and it was good to see the Deputy Prime Minister at today’s DPM questions agree that this is the best way forward. I urge all parties to put aside partisanship and work with us to deliver a convention that has true cross-party support and the support of civic society and our citizens. This would be a national conversation in which the politicians would be in a minority and in which the public would have the loudest voice. We would harness the energy of civil society and of the great British public.
This has the potential to bring about deeper change, rooted in the nations, regions, cities, towns and villages of this country, and not just within half a mile of this place. It has the potential to get to grips with a raft of interrelated issues such as how we create a second Chamber that is representative of the regions and nations, how we devolve even more power in England, and the merits of codifying the constitution—a topic I know my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) and the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee have done a considerable amount of work on.
In short, we are at a fork in the road. In one direction, we can follow the usual Westminster route of the establishment closing ranks, deciding what is best for the British people; or we can choose a new direction—one in which we put the people in charge of deciding their future. I believe this will deliver a new and refreshing constitutional settlement fit for a modern, 21st-century UK.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Debate between Sadiq Khan and Pete Wishart(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Sadiq Khan
Let us follow the logic of the hon. Lady’s argument: there are 6 million people missing from the register at the moment, but if we cannot ensure that we get them back on the register and stop further falls, we should be happy with the status quo. She is wrong: we should not be happy with the status quo; we should try to get these 6 million people on to the register and stop the cliff fall.
We should also bear it in mind that we are losing seven constituencies in Scotland, three in Northern Ireland and 10 in Wales. Although the latest census confirms that our population has risen, there will be fewer Members representing constituencies which will, as a result of inaccuracy, have fewer people on the electoral roll. That raises real concerns about whether the interests of all four of our nations will be properly protected by the Westminster Parliament.
Pete Wishart
The right hon. Gentleman is right to point out that Scotland will lose seven constituencies if the boundary review goes ahead. We will be supporting the amendment, not because we feel that its proponents have a great case but because it would end the prospect of further Conservative government in Scotland. However, given the current boundaries, will the Labour party not have a start of up to 30 seats at the next general election?
Sadiq Khan
I am always happy to discuss voting systems. If the hon. Gentleman is arguing for proportional representation rather than first past the post, that is a debate that we can have—although not, I hasten to add, during the short time that remains to us today.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Sadiq Khan and Pete Wishart(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Sadiq Khan
The hon. Gentleman knows all about conspiracy theories, and there will be people around the country with their own conspiracy theories about why so few Liberal Democrat Members are here.
The Bill has some positive aspects. In particular, some of us think that the proposals for a referendum on the voting system are good ones, but unfortunately we have concerns, as we will discuss, that other aspects of the Bill will do much to undermine, rather than enhance, British democracy. I am afraid that those aspects appear to be the product of narrow party interests, and given how the Bill has been drafted, there is a danger that those of us who would otherwise have supported it, and who ordinarily would have been allies of those on the coalition Front Bench and the Deputy Prime Minister will be forced to oppose it. The Committee has the opportunity to iron out those flaws so that the legislation can be made to support the high ideals of constitutional reform in the national interest, to which the coalition aspired only five months ago.
The starting point for today’s debate is clause 1, which, as was explained by the previous two speakers, stipulates that a referendum on moving to the alternative vote system for parliamentary elections “must” be held on 5 May 2011. As has been said by the chuntering hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), the Committee will know that only one party—the Labour party—went into the last election with a manifesto commitment to hold a referendum on moving to AV. That commitment was made after an attempt by the then Labour Government to legislate for such a referendum earlier this year through the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. Unfortunately, however, those provisions were blocked by Conservative peers in the unelected House of Lords—so the conspiracy theory about why the Deputy Prime Minister is not here will continue. Furthermore, I am happy to note—and put the record right—that clauses providing for a referendum had previously been passed by a substantial majority thanks, in part, to the support of Liberal Democrat Members, one or two of whom have bothered to be here today while we discuss clause 1 of this great reforming Deputy Prime Minister’s Bill.
It is right to give the people a choice between the first-past-the-post and the alternative vote systems. AV is, like first past the post, a majoritarian system that maintains the single Member constituency link. However, it offers voters the ability to express a greater range of preferences than does first past the post, and that element has, arguably, become more salient in recent years, with the resurgence of multi-party politics in the late 20th century. AV is also more likely to secure the return of Members of Parliament with the preferences of more than 50% of electors. However, the strength of that likelihood varies depending on the form of AV used. It should be noted—I am sure that colleagues are aware of this—that the system proposed in the Bill allowing voters to express as many or as few preferences as they like would not guarantee the return of every Member with the preferences of more than 50% of electors. None the less, the voluntary model of AV on offer here could increase the legitimacy of the electoral process.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Is not even to call this a mouse of a proposal to give a mouse a bad name? It is like Mr and Mrs Mouse got together and had a huge litter of children—and this AV proposal is the runt of that litter.
Sadiq Khan
The hon. Gentleman was, I am sure, in the House when the then MP for Cambridge referred to it as a “jemmy in the door”. I am not sure what the current intentions or aspirations of the Liberal Democrats are—survival might be one of them—but it is just a nasty piece of work, because we are not sure what they stand for or what the end goal is. But that is what we have, and sometimes the best can be the enemy of the good. We are where we are.
Others, of course, favour retaining the existing, first-past-the-post system, believing it a more straightforward method of voting that is more likely to avoid hung Parliaments and unstable Governments. I respect those views. Such differences of opinion are as evident in the Labour party as they are anywhere else—I hasten to add that some of my best friends hold that view. Yet although many of my colleagues are divided on the merits of different electoral systems, we are united in our belief that we should have a public debate about whether to move to AV, and that the voters should be given the final choice in a referendum. Although we support such a referendum, we share the concerns that many have voiced about precisely what the best time to hold it is. We believe that there is a serious concern about whether it is wise to combine such a referendum with the elections on 5 May 2011, as clause 1 proposes.
If passed, the Bill will change the way we choose Members of our elected House of Commons, change the size of the House of Commons, change our boundaries and change the way we do politics for at least a generation. Let us compare and contrast the haste with which that is being done—something on which there is a genuine difference of view, and not just between political parties, but within them—with House of Lords reform. I am not being critical of the groundwork being done on House of Lords reforms. All parties and most MPs agree on the need to reform the House of Lords. However, this coalition Government have established a Joint Committee, which is currently meeting and chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, with a draft Bill to be published before the end of this year. The draft Bill will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee over several months, and a Bill will be formally presented to Parliament, with, I am sure, a lengthy Second Reading debate, followed by a Committee stage and so on. Why is House of Lords reform treated with such care, attention and detail, yet House of Commons reforms is treated with undue haste and contempt?