Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I am pleased that we have managed to get to Amendment 54. I see that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, shares my pleasure. I should declare an interest because I am a Member still of the Scottish Parliament, elected by the bizarre election system of AMS, the additional member system. I remind those who are not too familiar with the Scottish electoral system that 73 Members are elected by first past the post—that is 71 for all the mainland constituencies and Orkney and Shetland have the special advantage of a having constituency each. That should please the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Lamont. So 73 are elected by first past the post based on the votes that individual candidates got in each of the constituencies, and then 56 Members are elected—seven Members for each of eight regions—on a top-up basis based on the vote obtained by the party in that region. I would find it very interesting if someone could explain to me—I ask the Minister because he was the acting First Minister as well as the Deputy First Minister—how I managed to get elected because I could then explain it to the electorate. I am not sure how the votes came to be transferred to me and, ultimately, I was the last person elected on the Lothian list. I do not think the electorate understood. It was a fascinating campaign. When I used to stand in south Ayrshire, in Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, as a Member of Parliament, I spent right up to—and certainly not beyond—the limit of the election allocation. In spite of the fact that my majority in 1997 was over 21,000, I still campaigned very hard, went around every part of the constituency, and fought a huge campaign putting my name before the electorate in Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley. When I got elected to the list in Lothians, I spent nothing on the election campaign. We did not run a huge campaign for me, though we did for the Labour Party and for the constituency members. It is a bizarre system, which even the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, who was one of the main architects of the system—it is a pity that he is not here tonight—regrets having introduced and would like to see revisited. I do not know whether the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, has come round to that point of view yet—I hear the muttering of the Leader of the House—but it indicates how unwise it is to go into systems without fully realising their implications, because there are huge, unintended consequences. I have tabled the amendment because the Scottish Parliament was deeply concerned and offended by the fact that it was not consulted about the date on which the UK Government intended to hold the referendum on the alternative vote. The Scottish Government felt the same way—I am more concerned about the Parliament than the Government, but their response was the same. Here we are dealing with Schedule 10. In it it is suggested that the Electoral Commission, and no one else, should be consulted. Until recently—a few months ago—there was no one on the Electoral Commission with any experience of either elections or referenda. That situation has been improved with the addition of four members, including my noble friend Lord Kennedy, George Reid and the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, who is sitting opposite. The commission’s knowledge of elections and referendums has been strengthened; I welcome her and my noble friend’s membership of it. However, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly should be consulted as well. They are packed full of people with experience of elections and referenda and would be able to offer wisdom in addition to that now offered by the Electoral Commission.