Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

It is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Grocott. So far in this debate it has been the other way round. He will not be surprised to learn—I do not know how gratified he will be—that I agreed with every word that he has said, too. Like him, I am a fan of the first past the post system. Unlike him—purely coincidentally, I am sure—I have had a bit more success, which is probably the best argument against first past the post that either side of your Lordships’ House has come up with. Certainly I do not find much favour with the amendment due to the various alternatives that it provides. No one listening to this debate could doubt the sincerity of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, although I found some of his conclusions somewhat confusing, to say the least. We talk about young people and politics. There will be lots of young people interested in politics demonstrating outside this building this week, largely because politicians who make promises and then immediately break them do not greatly enamour themselves to those young people. To suggest, as the noble Lord did, that those of us who spent time canvassing in elections for the other place talked only to our own supporters is somewhat bizarre. He said that if I followed him round and talked to Liberal Democrats, I would come across people desperate to embrace the principle of proportional representation. I have to tell the noble Lord that I have canvassed unsuccessfully for my own party in various by-elections in various Liberal Democrat strongholds. In places such as Eastbourne, people said to me, ““I’m not voting for the Labour candidate; I’m voting for the Liberal candidate””, but when I asked them why, they could not normally tell me. Let us be honest about this. Many supporters of the Liberal Democrat party are diametrically opposed to many of that party’s policies. That is a fact, as all of us who have gone around knocking on doors will know. No one ever said to me, ““I’m voting for the Liberal party because I’m in favour of proportional representation””. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, might argue that I mix with the wrong sort of people, and that may well be true, but that was certainly my experience and I suspect that it has been the experience of many noble Lords on both sides of the House who have canvassed in elections. We heard a fascinating speech, as ever, from the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who said that he was in favour of the alternative vote system because it was a step along the road to PR. However, according to the late Roy Jenkins, it is actually a step away from PR. As I reminded the noble Lord earlier today, in 1998 Roy Jenkins said that the conclusion of the independent royal commission which he chaired was that AV was even less proportional than the current system. Therefore, what the noble Lord is proposing is a step away from what he wants—or at least it is according to Roy Jenkins. Like the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, my noble friend Lord Howarth, who I am afraid is not in his place at the moment, bemoaned what he called the widespread disillusion about politics, and he felt that the acceptance of this amendment or a change in the electoral system might help to cure that widespread disillusion. I do not want to run again through the list of countries that have AV as their electoral system but Australia has been widely mentioned. I wonder whether my noble friend, who I am glad to see has rejoined us, has been to Australia. If he has, he will not have found the Australian people or their press speaking lyrically about their politics or their politicians, even though they are elected under the AV system. Indeed, if he travels a bit nearer to home—to Italy—he might find that, because of the system that they have there at present, a lot of people say, ““If only we had a system like yours””. Therefore, to pretend that AV or any other proportional representation system is being widely demanded by people out there or that it will transform this nation into a happy band of brothers and sisters is, in my view, a complete aberration. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, accuses those of us who are in favour of first past the post of wanting to preserve, presumably in aspic, a political system that has been around for more than 100 years. However, it is the coalition that appears to be following the doctrine, ““If it ain’t broke, break it””. I honestly cannot see how the Liberal Democrats can justify their stance on AV for any reason other than that it might favour them, and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips was honest enough to let the cat out of the bag on that. It might save them—or at least their colleagues in the other place—from electoral Armageddon at some point in the future. That is the only reason why they support it. It might shock the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and his Cross-Bench colleagues that a member of the Liberal Democrat party in particular could be so blatantly political about these matters. However, it has to be recognised that the reason why the Liberal Democrats are in favour of this AV system, which they have long campaigned against, is that they hope it will preserve some of their colleagues down the Corridor at the next election. Therefore, I cannot bring myself to support the noble Lord’s amendment.