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Government of Wales Bill

moved Amendment No. 17:"Page 4, line 32, leave out subsections (5) and (6) and insert—" ““(5) The list must not include a person— (a) who is included on any other list submitted for the Assembly electoral region or any list submitted for another Assembly electoral region, (b) who is an individual candidate to be an Assembly member for the Assembly electoral region or another Assembly electoral region, (c) who is a candidate to be the Assembly member for an Assembly constituency which is not included in the Assembly electoral region, or (d) who is a candidate to be the Assembly member for an Assembly constituency included in the Assembly electoral region but is not a candidate of the party. (6) A person may not be an individual candidate to be an Assembly member for the Assembly electoral region if he is— (a) included on a list submitted by a registered political party for the Assembly electoral region or another Assembly electoral region, (b) an individual candidate to be an Assembly member for another Assembly electoral region, (c) a candidate to be the Assembly member for an Assembly constituency which is not included in the Assembly electoral region, or (d) a candidate of any registered political party to be the Assembly member for an Assembly constituency included in the Assembly electoral region.”” The noble Lord said: As the Bill stands, constituency candidates will not be able to stand as regional list candidates and vice versa. The aim of Amendment No. 17 is to preserve the status quo. As far as I can make out, only the Government and the Labour Party wish to change the system in the way proposed—all the other political parties and a string of organisations, ranging from the Electoral Commission to the Electoral Reform Society and the Arbuthnott commission, are opposed to, or critical of, the change. The case for the change has not been proven. There has not been sufficient consultation on it. The origins of the pressure for change are well described in the Richard commission report and lie in the rivalry between the constituency and the regional list Members of the Assembly. Of the 20 elected under AMS in 2003, 17 stood as first-past-the post-candidates—although I am not absolutely sure about the figure, because I have seen 18 quoted. Many electors would take the view that competition between the two kinds of members to serve electors is no bad thing and keeps both on their toes, but the sitting constituency members do not relish having rival regional list members breathing down their necks as well as the usual constituency candidates, of which the regional list member may have been one prior to the Bill. But that situation will continue, even if the Government’s proposed change comes into effect. The only difference will be that the list member will not also be a failed constituency candidate. There will be nothing to stop the list member standing as a constituency candidate the next time round—it is only a matter of time. What is the real motivation behind the change that the Government propose? The starting point is that Labour has no regional list members. Also relevant is the fact that its hold on the Assembly Government is precarious, as we have heard, and they are totally dependent on their constituency members, some of whom have slender majorities. They must therefore be protected at all costs. The prohibition of dual candidacy strengthens the position of Labour members in their constituencies by weakening the minority parties’ attempts to undermine them from a position of strength on the regional list. To put that another way, Labour immunity in the constituencies that they occupy is improved if they are walled in against attack from regional members. Furthermore, the minority parties have to find more candidates, and more numbers usually means less quality. Of course, the Labour Party will never admit that the purpose of the change is to strengthen its own side and to weaken its opponents, so we are presented with a variety of bogus populist arguments. People, it is said, do not understand how losers under the first-past-the-post vote can be elected under the additional member system with its separate vote. The White Paper states:"““In the Government’s view, for losing candidates to be able to become Assembly Members regardless of their constituency election results both devalues the integrity of the electoral system in the eyes of the public and acts as a disincentive to vote in constituency elections””." Where is the evidence for those assertions, and how will the Government’s amendment restore the integrity of the system and encourage people to vote? The most damning indictment of the Government’s case for the amendment is the fact that they have set their hearts and minds firmly against making a similar change in Scotland, where the AMS system also operates. They said so in this House, when replying to the Second Reading debate on the Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, on 3 March. That debate followed soon after the publication of the Arbuthnott commission report, which disposed very effectively of the arguments against AMS, as my noble friend Lord Strathclyde pointed out in the course of the debate. But Arbuthnott went further, saying:"““Preventing dual candidacy would be undemocratic. It would place an unnecessary restriction on the democratic rights of individual candidates, parties and local electors to have as unrestricted a choice as possible in an election””." That is a very serious charge from a very serious quarter, which I hope the Government will answer. There is also a human rights dimension to this. They cannot say yes to that statement in Scotland and no in Wales. Such blatant inconsistency is pretty well intolerable. The Government should not be allowed to get away with it. Speaking of the Arbuthnott report reminds me that a quotation from the report is included in the Government’s collection of statements supporting their opposition to dual candidacy. The thrust of the report as a whole is in quite the opposite direction. We were fortunate at Second Reading that the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, who was also twice quoted in the same document, was present in the Chamber to assert that his statement had been taken out of context and should not have been used to buttress the Government’s case. The noble Lord said:"““It is a bit of a sleight of hand that I should be quoted in aid of a provision which I do not agree with””.—[Official Report, 22/3/06; col. 263.]" I am sure that his view would be reiterated by the authors of the Arbuthnott report. Another much quoted document in this context is the Labour Party manifesto. But of course there are two references, one of which relates to the UK, referring briefly to Wales, and the other more expansively to Wales. The UK manifesto reference is to,"““a reformed structure and electoral system to make the exercise of Assembly responsibilities clearer and more accountable to the public””." The Welsh manifesto goes beyond talk of responsibility and accountability to say that alongside these changes,"““we will prevent candidates from standing on both the list and in a constituency in order to make all candidates genuinely accountable to the electorate and to end Assembly Members being elected via the backdoor even when they have already been rejected by the voters””." The wording echoes, of course, the New Brunswick Commission on Legislative Democracy, quoted by the Government in their compendium of quotations. It shows a total failure to understand the nature of the AMS system that the Government themselves set up under the 1998 Act. The Government will argue that we should respect the inviolability of their manifesto and will probably accuse us of contravening the Salisbury convention if we do not respect it. However, I have made enough of a case for the Government to answer and know that many other noble Lords will want to lend their support to my case. I beg to move.