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Proceeding contribution from Alan Reid (Liberal Democrat) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 15 March 2011. It occurred during Debate on bill and Committee of the Whole House (HC) on Scotland Bill.


Scotland Bill

Yes, that is possible, but there would still be two people elected, and the hon. Gentleman objected to having more than one person representing a constituency. He expressed objections about regional list Members holding surgeries in his constituency, but under the system he proposes there will be two people representing every constituency, so there are the same possibilities for disagreements and people duplicating casework. I find it illogical that the hon. Gentleman extols the virtues of first past the post, but proposes a different system. The first-past-the-post or the first-two-past-the-post system could be very unfair. In the last Scottish Parliament election, the SNP got the most votes, and it rightly got the most seats. Let us consider what would have happened if we had adopted first past the post, however. In the constituency section, the SNP got 33% of the vote and Labour got 32%, but Labour won more than half the first-past-the-post seats—37 out of the 73 seats. Therefore, if we had purely been using a first-past-the-post system, even though the SNP was the clear winner of the election, the next morning we would have found we had a Labour Government with an overall majority, having more than half the seats.


Secondary information

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
525 c179 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
Devolved matters Constituencies Devolution Crown Estate Food Labelling Electoral systems Powers Railways Scotland Scottish Parliament Seas and oceans Territorial waters Summertime Rescue services Maritime and Coastguard Agency Scottish Government Regional members
Legislation
Scotland Bill 2010-12
Link
View this Proceeding contribution on www.publications.parliament.uk