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Electoral System

My Lords, we stand by the commitment in the 1997 manifesto. If one looks at the 2001 and 2005 manifestos, we are very clear about that. I hope to address that issue. I was merely trying to pay tribute to the list of particular concerns that were raised, not least freedom of information and so on, and to pay tribute to the work that the noble Lord did and continues to pursue, which is very important. As the noble Lord would expect, I disagree with his analysis, not least on the question of Iraq. It is very important that it was the first time that there was a substantive government Motion debated in another place and that that was voted on. I will return to the issue of people being switched off by the British process, which has a bearing on the kind of electoral system that one uses. Some of the evidence coming out of the GLA elections indicates that the elderly, who are the most likely to vote, find it quite difficult and confusing. A number of mosques reported high levels of people asking for explanations because of language challenges and not being able to understand quite what was happening. It is important that we look at all of those factors. We also know that in polls asking essentially whether people agreed that Labour has an overall majority because it won more seats, the NOP poll gave a figure of 57 per cent and the YouGov poll gave 52 per cent. There is already evidence to suggest that people recognise the outcome and accept that it was right, which is also important. I would like to pay tribute at length, but I do not have time, to my noble friend Lady Gale for her incredible work. She is the only woman, apart from the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, and I, who has spoken in this debate voluntarily—if I might put it that way. I pay tribute to all of her work, particularly that in support of the Welsh Labour Party, her work on elections and also, of course, her work for women. In the Commons in 2005, 19.8 per cent of Members are women. That is the highest percentage, but it is going up very slowly. There is a considerable way to go   to get to where I would like it to be. Minority representation is at 2.3 per cent, which compares with 7.9 per cent of the population. We still have work to do to make sure that we have correct representation, but I pay tribute to my noble friend for her work on that. The noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, referred to the independent Power Inquiry, chaired by my noble friend Lady Kennedy, which is very important. I hope to do a final report later this year. The inquiry has had eminent speakers, including my right honourable friend Robin Cook and the right honourable Michael Howard. Without pre-empting the report, which I have not seen, I think that it will say that there should be a combination of the importance of making sure that we have direct and wider debate and engagement by government and more participative decision-making, which I think that noble Lords would support, as well as putting PR in that context. I look forward to seeing the report. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, specifically asked what would have happened on the death of a candidate in Glasgow Springburn, which is the Speaker’s constituency. I am told that there would not be any major implications—Heaven forefend that it should happen!—and that another Speaker would be elected in another place. There would be a by-election as usual. I will not go into more detail of the noble Lord’s speech, which I found extremely interesting, not least because I have addressed the issue of first past the post. I had a wonderful image of the noble Lord, Lord   Greaves, surrounded by angels. I was a little alarmed that he had sent away people who had come to him for advice and support. I do not really believe that the noble Lord would do that: he would take up their cases and would be very vigorous in so doing. Under our system, it is important that when MPs are elected two things should happen. First, the electorate should recognise that they are the elected MPs, that they should turn to them, and that that is the responsibility of MPs. Secondly, MPs should make sure that they represent their constituents and not just their party or the constituents who voted for them. Noble Lords who were Members of another place will be exemplars of the long tradition where MPs have done and sought to do precisely that. It is very important that that is seen to happen, because that is also a fundamental part of democracy. I was very interested in what the noble Lord said about STV. I noted that not all noble Lords on his Benches would agree with him. The noble Lord knows well the advantages in giving people the choice of which candidates are elected on a personal as well as a party basis. It offers a choice of proportionality and has a retention of geographic link. We can see from Northern Ireland that the disadvantages can be candidates who fight each other and will fight rivals within their own party. Politicians have told me that that can lead to highly parochial political campaigning. It is at the cost of campaigning on national issues if it becomes very parochial. That would have to be taken into account. I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Corbett of Castle Vale for addressing the comments of two Liberal Democrat MPs and I am extremely grateful for the noble Lords who have supported my junior status as being appropriate. I may not have the rank, but I hope that I speak with the authority. That is all that I would say to that. My noble friend made some very interesting comments about the European parliamentary elections and the regional list system of PR. I had hoped that we would have a conversation about the d’Hondt system because I have with me everything there is to know about it, including who he was. All I can say is that he had to be a professor of mathematics, did he not? My noble friend sought to highlight the difficulty of breaking the link with the constituent. The system has advantages, given that elected MEPs are not left to deal on their own with the needs of up to 700,000 constituents, but there is always a question about the link between the constituent and his representative. The noble Lord, Lord Garden, again raised very important issues regarding the Armed Forces. I was much taken with his argument that as servicemen and women were in the vanguard for postal voting, perhaps they could form the vanguard of the next wave of new voting systems. Clearly, we have to pick up these issues properly. I am not in a position to do that now, but I will make a commitment to arranging a meeting between officials and the noble Lord to ensure that they are pushed forward both within my own department and the Ministry of Defence. The noble Lord also pointed out that Commonwealth citizens are no longer able to use the proxy vote as they might not have any family in the UK. I am told that that is not right, but I shall write to the noble Lord with a full answer.