Government of Wales Bill

I am one of the people who the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) referred to earlier: I voted and campaigned against the Welsh Assembly and I make absolutely no apologies for doing so. [Interruption.] In response to more noises from Labour Back Benchers, let me say that—just like members of Plaid Cymru, who are sitting in a Parliament whose location is perhaps not of their choosing, and members of the Liberal Democrat party, who have fought many elections under a voting system that they do not necessarily agree with—it is right that Conservatives who had opposed the Welsh Assembly were more than happy to accept it as a reality on the ground and to work constructively to try to ensure that it delivered stability for Wales. Seven years down the line however, it comes as something of a surprise to all of us that, instead of looking at why the voting turnout is not what it should be, the Government have decided to push through a subtle, but very sneaky, change to the electoral system. In a very worthy speech, the hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) decried the overall system of proportional representation and pointed out that it means that people who have not gained the confidence of the majority of an electorate in a given constituency can nevertheless sit as Members of this institution. The right hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) made a similar point, and I have to say that I have a great deal of sympathy with that view. I do not believe in the PR system. I happen to agree with him that a Member’s representing first and foremost the people who vote for him, rather than the political party that put him there, is indeed the jewel in the crown of our electoral system. But I then have to ask Labour Members why, if they believe that, they propose a subtle change to an electoral system that will allow the overall principle to continue, instead of having the political courage to come out and say, ““We don’t believe in proportional representation. We are going to scrap it completely and have either one or two Members elected to each constituency in Wales.”” That would be an intellectually honest approach for Members who do not like the PR system to take. [Interruption.] I am quite happy to take interventions. But instead, those Members propose a change so subtle that very few people will understand it. This is where I begin to diverge from the right hon. Member for Torfaen, because the reality is that virtually nobody will complain that they wanted not this PR system, but another one. We are used to receiving hundreds of letters from our constituents about a variety of things—from the situation in the middle east to whether bears should be used in circuses—but I can honestly say that in my one year as a Member of this place, and in seven as a Member of the Welsh Assembly, I have not received a single letter suggesting that the current PR system is wrong and should be amended. Nobody has ever come up to me in the street and suggested that the system should be changed. I have heard many people, including from my own association, say, ““Scrap PR altogether””, but I have never heard anyone suggest that this subtle change to the system will make any difference to voter turnout or anything else. So one has to ask why the Government are going ahead with this proposal, and the answer is that, yes, they are going to derive a straightforward political advantage from doing so. They know perfectly well that the minority parties benefit from the PR top-up system, so it is those parties—the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Conservative party—that will be most disadvantaged by the change that the Government are pushing through, and which they know very few people will understand. I am afraid that some of the reasons that they have come up with for the change—I tried to make a note of some of them—are absolutely pathetic. I have heard it said that AMs do not like regional Assembly Members competing with them in their constituencies, but those who say that seem not to have grasped the simple fact that, even if this change is made, regional Assembly Members will still be able to open an office in, and put up a sign in, the constituencies of existing Labour AMs, and some will still do so. If Labour AMs are doing their job properly, they will have absolutely nothing to fear from regional AMs. The regional AM for South Wales East—the leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Welsh Assembly, no less—has often tried to portray himself as the AM for Monmouth. That never bothered me in the slightest, and do you know why, Madam Deputy Speaker? Because everyone would scratch their heads on reading his leaflets and wonder who the hell this bloke was who was pretending to be the AM for Monmouth, when they all thought that it was me. Such behaviour reflected rather badly on those people. If directly elected AMs are doing their job properly, they have nothing to fear from regional AMs who would like to think that they represent a constituency. We have heard it said that it is unfair that a directly elected AM should have to contest an election against somebody who has already been doing the job for a couple of years, and who has been pretending to be the AM for the area. What this amounts to is that the Labour party, which has enjoyed a political monopoly in Wales for decades, is just a little upset at the fact that it is losing the advantage of incumbency. Instead of fighting against candidates who do not have all the advantages of sitting AMs or MPs, they are fighting against those who, to some extent, have the same opportunities and the same access to offices and leaflets, and they do not like it. They do not like competition on an equal basis. The Government are pushing through a change that they know will mean that regional AMs will be in direct competition with members of their own party who are standing for the constituency seat. That is why this change will undermine the minority parties. The Government know the game and they do not want us to explain it, but we all know that the reality is that a regional AM will suddenly find themselves in direct competition with a colleague from their own party who is standing for the constituency in question. That is why the Government are pushing through this change. They can smile and laugh, because they know that most people will be lost when the change is explained to them. They know that the man on the Pontypool omnibus—if there are such things any more; that is perhaps a debate for another time, but thanks to the cuts, many such services are disappearing—[Interruption.]