Home Affairs and Justice

I am grateful for that clarification, but it does not reassure me in one key respect. The single elected commissioner, or the multiple mini commissioners proposed by the Home Office, would be elected by the first-past-the-post system. That would be the first time that any new body had been elected under that system since 1997. We know from peer-reviewed academic literature that if elections are carried out under first past the post, the resulting body is substantially less representative in terms of both gender and ethnic minority than is the case with other electoral systems—[Interruption.] Well, the Justice Secretary uses unparliamentary language to say what he thinks of that particular point, but I would be happy to send him the references for the literature I mentioned. If we were to go ahead with the Government's model for elected police authorities, there would be the most extraordinary results. I have asked the Electoral Reform Society to analyse the likely results of electing one person for each crime and disorder reduction partnership. On the basis of the 2007 election results, the Government—I am told they are a Labour Government—are proposing a system under which the Conservatives would win 65.2 per cent. of all the police authority seats in England outside London, despite polling only 38 per cent. of the vote.