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Electoral System

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, on initiating this timely debate. I follow other noble Lords also in saying that his brilliant introduction will have reduced our speeches somewhat as we do not have to number-crunch—it has been done for us. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, that Blaenau Gwent rather disproves the point that she was making about all-women lists in strong seats, but I resist the opportunity to take that further. As the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said, the affront to the public’s choice as a result of the election—which was the least proportional in living history—has been commendably addressed by the Independent,which has launched a sustained public campaign for a fairer voting system. Already in the Times, Mr Peter Riddell, its political editor, has stated the case for a re-examination of the present system, while his colleague, Mr Matthew Parris, has expressed his opposition to that. Those are all signs that a serious public debate is getting underway, and your Lordships’ debate today is another manifestation of that. The debate will be greatly assisted by an imminent publication by Professor Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics. He is the UK’s foremost expert on elections and their outcomes, and he has analysed how different the results would have been under different systems such as STV, the alternative vote and ““top up”” systems. He has been an adviser to the Jenkins Commission on voting and the Wakeham Commission on Lords reform, among many others; there is no doubting his academic credentials. In a forthcoming article for Parliamentary Affairs entitled ““Facing up to Multi-Party Politics””, he offers a completely new interpretation of the changing inter-relations between electoral behaviour and voting systems in the UK as they have been evolving in recent times. He effectively demolishes the tired conventional wisdom that has lazily been employed by academic and media commentators alike and, not least for self-serving purposes, by politicians from the two larger parties. That prevailing paradigm takes it as axiomatic that the two-party system is the essential characteristic of British politics. It is an outlook that dismisses the outcomes of by-elections that upset expectations; all other political parties apart from Labour and the Tories as minor distractions; and the rise of new parties as being simply ephemeral. According to this view, what happens at general elections is all that really matters. That may well have been valid for the three decades after 1945, but it now no longer fits the facts of contemporary political life. After an exhaustive examination, almost all of which was done before the election in May, Professor Dunleavy convincingly demonstrates that a two-party system per se no longer obtains. He writes:"““In every region of the country, modern British party systems now involve at least six or seven parties with significant vote share at one election or another, a potential for legislative representation at some level, office capabilities and endurance over time, and distinctive ideological positions which are not encompassed by Labour versus Conservative differences. Whenever voters exercise their choices in proportional systems of voting they assign significant support to at least six or seven parties””." It is clear that electors welcome the rise of a multi-party system along with a proportional voting system in which they can, and do, frequently split their votes between parties. That quite evidently occurs when elections are held simultaneously as in 2003, when local and EU elections were held on the same day and recently when elections to Westminster and county council seats coincided. Of course it also occurs over time, when electors vote ““tactically”” and switch from their previous voting loyalties. That kind of behaviour worked against the interest of the Conservatives at the 1997 and 2001 elections. The new situation has arisen since the introduction of proportional systems for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and for some mayoral contests. Professor Dunleavy suggests, and I quote him again:"““Under the current ‘co-existence’ of PR and plurality rule voting systems, the outcomes of PR elections have already exerted an important influence on the development of ‘major’ party politics””." He predicts, moreover, that the UK is in a transitional state that will inexorably lead to all elections, including those for Westminster, being on a proportional basis. In that he anticipated the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Sewel, when he spoke on the Queen’s Speech and warned of ““sleepwalking”” into all-out proportionality. Neither Professor Dunleavy nor I share the forebodings expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Sewel—quite the reverse—but it is good to have his support in the analysis of the trends. Professor Dunleavy cites the findings of Dr Josep Colomer who, using comparative data, shows that popular demand will force political leaders to concede proportional elections, albeit reluctantly. That may well come about, and I quote Professor Dunleavy for the last time,"““if the fragmentation of alignments persists then the risk of the incumbents losing elections catastrophically will grow””." The present simple plurality system cannot be sustained; popular alienation with it is clear. Modern electoral methods that focus on targeting the relatively small numbers of swing voters in marginal constituencies are the logical consequence of first past the post. Such methods, by definition, exclude the vast majority of the electorate from having any effective influence on events. As a consequence, there are an awful lot of wasted votes, and that cannot be good for democracy. The POWER inquiry, headed by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and Mr Ferdinand Mount, commissioned a poll of non-voters at the recent election held on 5 May to elicit their reasons for not voting. The results are instructive and overturn the stereotype explanation that it is all down to apathy. When asked why they did not vote, 36 per cent gave political reasons as against 19 per cent who admitted to being apathetic. The main reason given for abstaining was a lack of trust in politicians and what they say, and a lack of significant difference between the parties’ programmes. A significant finding was that more than 90   per cent of non-voters identified three or more political issues that ““really mattered”” to them, despite the fact that 66 per cent declared themselves as disinterested in politics. That suggests that many non-voters do not connect the issues that concern them to parliamentary politics, which presents a challenge to political parties. When asked what would encourage non-voters to vote, 72 per cent said they would participate in referendums—that is interesting—and other participatory devices such as meetings with local councillors to help to set municipal budgets. Much needs to be done to re-engage the people with Parliament, and that will require a broad spectrum of remedies. One of those will be the introduction of a fairer voting system for Westminster. The Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the Foreign Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister may try to resist it, but it will come and they will be forced to yield to public opinion. I shall return to the position adopted by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and most of his fellow Conservatives, with notable exceptions such as the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Weedon, whom we all miss during his absence from the House. I find it inconceivable that the Tories will not come to realise that PR is in their best interests. Were it not for the top-up provisions in Scotland and Wales, they would virtually have ceased to exist in those regions. They were flatlining at around 30 per cent before 1997—as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said—so it looks very unlikely that they will gain office in the foreseeable future without PR. Whether they come round to support PR for Westminster or not, they will nevertheless benefit when public demand is acceded to. It will be the electors, not the elected, who will enforce the change to a fair voting system.