Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill (Money) (No. 3)

Several hon. Members have spoken about fairness and proportionality, and on that basis I support the Liberal Democrat amendments. People have referred to the Irish example, and I am very familiar with the electoral system in the Irish Republic and the similar—although until recently not exactly the same—version of the single transferable vote system that we have in Northern Ireland. The Irish people mandated that system for us when they voted for the Good Friday agreement, which promised that the Northern Ireland Assembly would be elected on the basis of STV for the very good reason that people wanted it to be fair, inclusive and proportionate. So, I have strong sympathies with the Liberal Democrat case. When it comes to council by-elections in Northern Ireland, Dail by-elections in the south and the election of the Irish President, STV morphs into and, in effect, runs as an alternative vote system. It stands out as a very good thing when it comes to electing a key figurehead, such as a national President, because people want the person who embodies and is meant to epitomise the values and spirit of their country to have the clear endorsement of at least a majority of its citizens. The alternative vote system, as a result of STV, has those benefits, but I am realistic enough to know that the real issue tonight will not be about the single transferable vote and first past the post. In many ways the real issue is not even about an outright choice between the alternative vote and first past the post; it is about whether, in principle, there should be a referendum that at least puts the choice before the public. Parliament has been embarrassed not just by the facts of the expenses scandal, but by the ridiculous fact that none of us has been able to explain or excuse outright, first, how information was suppressed for so long, then, how things were handled and mismanaged and, even now, the confusion about what reforms there will or will not be. Parliament voted for an Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and received the Kelly report, but now there is confusion about which measure stands, which will be revised and which will not. So, at a time when we as a Parliament are open to ridicule, it is the height of arrogance for us to decide that the public should never have the right to say, ““There might be a better way of electing people to Parliament so that MPs might have a bit more credibility after all this.”” The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) said that we have to decide what Parliament is for—why we elect MPs. It is not just for us to decide why people elect Parliaments, however; the public can decide. If the public are given a referendum on such an issue, they will have a say on the quality of the mandate that they want their MP to have. The public will have a right to say whether they are able to trust themselves to express an honest first preference and considered second and third preferences, or whether, for their own ideological reasons, they just want to plump for one candidate. We should give the public the choice to have that choice, rather than say that they cannot cope with it. Some Members cannot cope with choice because they cannot cope with filling in forms and justifying things, but that does not mean that the public cannot cope with clear and honest choice. So long as we have the first-past-the-post system, electors will be locked into situations in which they have to calculate possible tactical votes while being browbeaten by all sorts of propaganda about who is the only person capable of defeating another party. People are often misled: they do not cast their honest preference and support parties with particular policies; they surrender their vote on the purely negative ground of trying to prevent somebody else from being elected. Rather than putting things in the hands of those who come up with the best propaganda and the most misleading graphics on electoral trends, surely it is much better to put things in the hands of honest voters—not the dishonest spin merchants working on behalf of political parties. We should make sure that the election of an MP is not decided by the people who control all the party lists and manage things. We should make sure that the overall election outcome is not decided by the parties' targeting of swing voters in the battleground constituencies, who become the only people to determine elections. I have heard a lot from Conservatives about how under the alternative vote system everybody's vote is not the same and how it means that those voting for small parties end up having a bigger say than those who vote for big ones, but that is not true, because everybody's vote counts equally in the end. The people supporting a system with unequal voting are those who defend first past the post, under which the election will be decided by a very small fraction of targeted swing voters spread throughout the UK in marginal constituencies. Let us be honest about some of the arguments being made. I have a particular reason for wanting to move to a more proportional system; if the only one effectively on offer is the alternative vote, I shall vote for that this evening. My reason is to do with the experience in Northern Ireland. Whenever we negotiated the Good Friday agreement, one of the things that some of us did, late in the negotiations—particularly when the then Prime Minister Tony Blair was present—was to argue that we also needed a different electoral system for the Northern Ireland seats at Westminster. We argued that on the grounds that, if we were to make the power-sharing Assembly work and to make inclusion work, and if we were to create a new political ethic, we would not have very much success if every time a Westminster election came along we were convulsed back to sectarian impulses—having to vote orange and green. The thinking would be, ““Which Green candidate is most likely to beat the Orange one?””, or, ““Which Orange candidate is most likely to keep out the Green one?”” In Northern Ireland, we still find ourselves constantly drawn and sucked back to those sectarian, tribal instincts. Some of us are committed to trying to allow politics to move on and to bringing about the emancipation of a new political ethic in Northern Ireland; it will be bad for that project if we stay stuck with first past the post, which keeps us trapped in sterile arguments. In the 2001 Westminster election, Sinn Fein ran an essentially geo-sectarian campaign of ““greening the west””. Some of us made the honest choice not to go into sectarian electoral pacts; we believed that the parties should stand on their own distinct principles and we were fighting our cause. My party suffered as a result of that principle, because the instinct was, ““We have Unionist MPs in a number of constituencies in the west of Northern Ireland who represent only a minority of the electorate.”” That fact was deeply resented and led to people saying to us, ““If you're not going to stand out of the way, sorry but we are going to bypass you and vote for Sinn Fein so that we can take the seats.”” That has not particularly helped the political atmosphere in Northern Ireland; it does not give voters a full and honest choice. Now, the Conservative party says that it will come into Northern Ireland so that everyone, regardless of background, can vote for secular politics and for parties of national government. Of course, the Conservatives start off with a kind of ““new force”” axis with the Ulster Unionist party and then they seem to dabble in discussions about a more pan-Unionist pact that might be offered. The party is trapped in that situation, despite what might be its honest good motives; I do not know about those, but I am not here to cast doubt on them. The Conservative party finds itself dragged into that precisely because of the first-past-the-post system. If the party is honest and serious about coming into Northern Ireland and making a new, honest offer of its manifesto, the only way in which it will credibly do that is if it supports a change in the first-past-the-post system.