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Electoral System

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for bringing the subject of electoral reform to this House for debate. Most will agree that the results of the recent general election do not reflect well upon the oldest democratic system in the world. I am often asked to explain in simple terms what is wrong with the present system and why it should be changed. There will be some small degree of repetition in view of the figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. But, having heard the noble Lord, Lord Corbett, in his engaging speech clearly endorse the status quo, I should like to reinforce the real reasons why the system needs to be changed. As noble Lords have already heard, in the recent election—and please think about these figures—for every million people who voted Labour 37 Members of Parliament were elected; and for every million people who voted Conservative just 22 Members of Parliament were elected. One Labour vote was equivalent to nearly two Tory votes—perhaps Labour thinks that is their proper value. That must suggest to the meanest intelligence that something is structurally wrong with the system. The Liberal Democrats, as the House has already heard, secured 10 MPs for one million votes. If Labour had been similarly represented, it would not have secured 356 MPs but proportionally, as we did, it would have secured just 95 MPs. What a system we have. The reality of politics is well understood by politicians but seldom expressed, and certainly not in public. We are all primarily in politics to secure power, preferably for one’s own party—to have an overall majority in the House of Commons. That may seem somewhat selfish when, as today, the overall majority is achieved with just 37 per cent of the vote, but if one believes that one’s own party has by far the best policies for the people, as indeed we all do, then the fact that one has secured an overall majority on little more than one-third of the vote is not a cause for real concern. The party in power always believes that the people benefit more by its being in power than if any other party were in power. There have been 17 general elections since the Second World War. The Conservatives and Labour have each won an overall majority eight times. So whatever arguments the Liberal Democrat Party makes in favour of a form of PR, it is automatically defeated by the major parties wanting to retain the system that gives them overall majorities at least half of the time. Coalition governments are significantly more difficult to manage, so what hope can there be if the two parties which are supported by 69 per cent of the voting electorate know that they will have absolute power after at least half the general elections? Buggins’ turn is perfectly illustrated by the election results since 1945. The electoral system will never change until one of the two major parties decides that it will be better off under another system. As it happens, that time may be approaching for the Conservatives. The structural changes that have taken place in the UK, and in particular the increasing share not just of votes but of seats won by the Liberal Democrats, make the likelihood of the Conservatives securing an overall majority remote but not impossible. The first past the post system works perfectly well where there are just two major parties, but, as we know, it can be a disaster where there are three. Achieving an overall majority is the single-minded objective of both major parties. Yet they might never again succeed if the Liberal Democrats, as I believe we will, by stages raise their number of MPs to over 100. Noble Lords will notice that there are no rose-coloured spectacles in our party, suggesting that we are about to go home and prepare for government. I personally doubt, unless a cataclysmic event occurs—for which we pray occasionally—whether in the next 30 years the Liberal Democrats could secure an overall majority in the House of Commons under the present system. Another factor that has changed radically is the manner in which all parties fight general elections, as we first did in 1997 when we more than doubled our MPs from 20 to 46 with just a small increase in our vote. Today all parties concentrate on the marginal seats. So much so that even normal swings cannot be relied upon. What, therefore, is the principal argument in favour of electoral reform? It is simply that the number of MPs for each party would correlate more closely with the actual votes cast for each party. Would it mean that possibly no party would ever have an overall majority and that coalitions would be the norm? The honest answer is probably yes, but at least the people would be more fairly represented in those coalitions. Lastly, I come to the situation, following the general election, in which we find ourselves in the House of Lords. Powerful Prime Ministers, backed by overall majorities in the House of Commons, by themselves, determine the relative strengths of political parties in this House. Speaking personally, I very much admired the Prime Minister when, during his first term, he brought out a White Paper saying that the Government’s objective for the House of Lords was to seek parity with the Conservatives and to give the Liberal Democrats the   number of Peers proportional to their votes in the previous general election. I thought that that was a very generous offer, which I put on record in letters to the Times. Noble Lords should remember that when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister she continued to increase the number of Conservative Peers when her party already had a majority in the House—not just over all the other parties, but over the Cross-Bench Peers as well. This week the Government have achieved parity with the Conservatives, and I congratulate them on that. In 1996 the Conservatives had 481 Peers and Labour had just 116. Today the Conservatives have 210 and Labour has 213—an increase for Labour of 97 Peers. As for the Liberal Democrats, the generous but fair proposal to allow us the same number of Peers proportional to our vote in the general election has never been honoured. I discussed that with the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and the late Lord Williams of Mostyn when each was Leader of the House. Without equivocation they agreed that the arrangements had not been honoured, but said that the matter was not for them but the Prime Minister. Today the Liberal Democrats have 74 Peers—an increase of 17 Peers since 1976. Under the Prime Minister’s proposals we should be permitted 120 Peers. We eagerly await the early appointment of 46 more Peers. I believe that the Government intend to increase their power in the Lords by creating yet more Labour Peers and breaking their own parity rule. I therefore ask the Minister whether the Government intend to stand by either of their commitments to achieve fair representation in this House, which is parity with the Conservatives and a proportional number of Peers for the Liberal Democrats.