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Elections: Voting Systems

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, not only for introducing this debate on electoral systems but for making mention of the Power commission’s work. As many of your Lordships know, I chaired the Power commission for the Rowntree trusts in 2006. We undertook an extensive research programme in order to understand why people were feeling increasingly alienated and detached from formal politics—not all politics, but formal politics. Crucially, we also undertook to arrive at a series of recommendations to help renew British democracy. I regret to say that few aspects of the political system we investigated received more hostile comment than the main political parties. The expert and practitioner evidence, the public submissions and all the research projects we undertook revealed a widespread sense that the main parties were at best failing in the basic function of connecting governed and governors, and were at worst a serious obstacle to democratic engagement. Such hostility towards the parties inevitably feeds into alienation from the election processes. It was shocking to find such strength of feeling on the subject among the general public. The attraction of voting is bound to be severely reduced if the main parties vying for the vote are widely regarded as not offering much choice generally in terms of what they stand for, or if they are regarded as unappealing. But that is how the situation was described to us. The noble Lord, Lord Norton, referred to Popper saying that voting day is judgment day, but in the last general election more people abstained than voted for my party, the party that won. We should be alarmed about that, and concerned about what it means. Immediately after the 2005 general election we conducted a survey among those who had not voted. We found that approximately 45 per cent of them had not voted because they did not like what the main parties had to offer. I listen with great care to someone with the experience of my noble friend Lord Maxton; I respect that experience. However, we have to be careful not to sound arrogant by saying that the first past the post system has served us well, therefore we should not change it. Perhaps it did serve us well in the past, but I think that we have to listen well to the public and their concerns. I know that my noble friend Lord Maxton would be anxious to hear what the public feel about this. Of course it is absolutely right that opposition or small parties are always the ones that ask for an examination of the voting system; our party, the Labour Party, did so back in the days when it still was a small party. However, the fact that the issue is raised by small parties does not invalidate the argument about the need to create spaces where voices can be heard. It is important that we do that. This alienation is compounded by the electoral system. In submissions we received from the public, the most common reason cited for their low turn-out was a belief that they had no chance of having an impact on the final outcome. They felt their votes did not count. They described the situation as follows: ““I live in a constituency where the Conservatives always win, so what’s the point in my voting when I’m not going to vote for them?””; or ““Why should I vote if the Liberals always win in my constituency?””; or ““Labour always wins””. People who vote for a party that has no chance of winning feel there is no point in going to the polls. Our survey of non-voters in the 2005 general election upheld that view. Nearly half of those not voting said they would be more likely to vote if they felt that their candidate had at least a chance of winning power or finding a place in governance. So not only are the main parties unappealing to many voters; the electoral system itself ensures that casting a vote for a preferred alternative is widely seen as a waste of energy. That should matter to us. The simple calculation made by millions of citizens is that the choice at election time is to vote either for a party that one dislikes or for one that stands no chance of parliamentary representation let alone a place in government. We as a nation have changed. The public have changed. The old allegiances and bonds are changing, and have been for many years. We are a citizenry in transition. The old political allegiances are changing; they are less tribal. The public’s aspirations are changing, too. As active Labour Party members in the 1950s, my parents’ hope was that they would have decent housing, with bathrooms and hot water, a good education system for their children, and security in work. My parents had been through the depression and knew what it was like to be workless. In many ways, some of that has been secured. But the aspirations of our varied population are changing and shifting. We have also seen a real decline in the old social and economic conditions, but a new political formulation has yet to be developed to effectively represent and shape the new interests and values emerging in our post-industrial society. Our political parties are of course seeking to reform, but they tend to do so by huddling round a central ground, seeking votes only in the marginal constituencies that we hear so much about. As a result, many people—even in the parties, and even in the Labour Party—feel very disillusioned about the party which they thought was theirs. The same is happening now in the Conservative Party, and I am sure it will happen also in the Liberal Democrat Party. Once people huddle round the same set of issues, they start feeling that the things that they have cared about are no longer of importance to their leadership. It is very important that spaces are made for people’s voices to be heard, not only within parties but within the system. We have to deal with this disengagement, and the electoral system is one of the things that we have to look at. That is why I welcome this debate. The main parties are still the only serious contenders for power on offer to the electorate. However, we also have to give space for other possibilities to emerge. That is how we can draw the young back into our formal politics. That is how we can create new passions about how our world and society can be changed. Let us consider this House, which, I regret to say, is increasingly more respected than the other place. One of the reasons is that, although it is unelected, none of the parties here has a majority; we have to struggle to assemble one. That is healthy for democracy. We should recognise the things that are necessary to re-energise our democratic system. The electorate occasionally attempt to break the monopoly, when the rare opportunity presents itself. We have seen that in the sudden and often unexpected burst of support for an independent candidate, or for small parties that effectively engage sections of the public. It can be seen also in the rise of tactical voting, as sections of the electorate realise that, in some constituencies, they can at least vote meaningfully against something they do not like even if they cannot vote meaningfully for something they do like. But those are exceptional moments and they do little to bolster the health of electoral democracy. People will feel, ““I’m voting tactically but I’d like to be voting for something and someone I believe in””. That is where the health of democracy lies.