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Elections: Voting Systems

My Lords, it is my intention—at the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Tyler, to whom I am very grateful for introducing this debate—to speak mainly on the subject of what form of electoral system should be used if your Lordships’ House should become wholly or partly elected. However, before I do that, I would like to make a couple of brief comments on the previous two speeches. First, I have to say that I was rather startled by the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, that having a Government elected by 35 per cent of the voters was somehow more democratic than a coalition Government elected jointly by something over 50 per cent of the voters. This point was taken up in a slightly different way by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. He said that having a coalition Government was not democratic, because not one voter had voted for the particular combination of policies adopted by the coalition. In a sense, that is true, but it is illogical because that really is a serious argument only if one can assume that everyone who voted for one party was thereby consciously supporting its every proposal. Many people vote for a party whose policy they like on balance; hardly any of them would personally adopt every single proposal that is made. It may well be, therefore, that the policy of a coalition Government may more accurately represent the views of those who voted for one or other of those parties than the policy of the party for which they voted on its own. Let me address the question of what would be the best system for electing Members of your Lordships’ House, if and when it becomes wholly or mainly elected. I am not going to talk about whether we should become an elected House; we have debated that issue ad nauseam and no doubt we will continue to debate it on other occasions. There is a clear possibility that legislation may be passed in the next Parliament—plainly not in this one—to make your Lordships’ House a wholly or mainly elected House. It does not follow in any way that the system that is appropriate for electing Members of the House of Commons should also be the system for electing Members of your Lordships’ House. I am well aware, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, pointed out, that there is no such thing as an ideal electoral system. I start from what seems to me a pretty obvious proposition—that the system for electing Members of your Lordships’ House should at least be different from the present system for electing Members of the House of Commons. That is because one of the main duties of your Lordships’ House is to act as a check on the abuse of power by the Government, which may have been elected, as the present Government were, by as little as 35 per cent of those who voted and, of course, by a much smaller proportion of those eligible to vote. Your Lordships’ House would be quite unable to exercise that duty of providing a check on the abuse of power effectively if a majority of elected Peers were members of the government party, as could well be the result if first past the post was chosen as the system for electing Members of your Lordships’ House. That would obviously be the case if your Lordships’ House was wholly elected, and it would be the consequence even if only, for example, 80 per cent were elected and a number of Cross-Benchers remained. Therefore, it follows that if your Lordships’ House is to carry out its functions, at least so long as the House of Commons is elected by first past the post we cannot have the same system for election to your Lordships’ House. That applies also if the House of Commons was elected by the alternative vote, which can occasionally produce even more distorted results than first past the post, as happened in the French elections some years ago and as might well have happened in the United Kingdom in 2005, according to the table on page 130 of the report. Only if STV was accepted for election to the House of Commons would it be appropriate to have both Houses elected by the same system. I do not think that a list system would be appropriate for election to the House of Commons, because it is clear that there is strong popular support for having a local MP or MPs. Therefore, while STV does that in normally producing constituencies with between four and seven or eight Members, there would be very limited numbers. Of course, ordinary electors would have the advantage of having an MP who, although possibly a little less local than at present, would have the same political views as them, so they might feel happier about approaching them. We are getting a little closer if we have the first past the post plus a top-up system, as used for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, or a similar system recommended by the Jenkins commission, but if that were adopted for the House of Commons, it would not be appropriate for your Lordships' House. What is left on the list for your Lordships' House is either the list system or STV, both of which would be acceptable. We have experience of both systems in the United Kingdom. The list system has been used for European elections since 1999. STV has been used in Northern Ireland since 1921 and was recently extended to local government elections in Scotland. STV has many advantages: it gives voters a chance to vote for individuals rather than parties if they wish to do so and to give successive preferences to people from different parties. Of course, it has drawbacks. Garret FitzGerald, the former Taoiseach of Ireland, once said in an article I read with interest that Members of the Dail tended to spend too little time in the Dail and too much in local pubs chatting up potential voters. With STV, to some extent, the real opponents of the candidates are not the other parties but the other candidates in their own party.