I can give the hon. Gentleman that reassurance. I can assure him that, if anything, the link would be strengthened. I live in a local authority ward that is elected by single transferable vote. I elect four councillors. Each of them has a link to the constituents and, between them, they are able to represent the views of just about everybody in their community, not just those who have voted for them and those who agree with them. In that way, using the single transferable vote, the link between the elected and the elector is, in fact, strengthened.
I was just saying that it has been the privilege of my life to be a Member of Parliament, but, believe me, I am by no means blind to the multiple faults of this House. It would not take an awful lot to make it so much better. We have heard an awful lot of talk in the last week or two about cultures, and about the culture at the heart of this Government in No. 10 Downing Street, but let us also accept that the culture of Parliament has to change.
Time and again over the years, the culture of deference and entitlement has led us into difficulty, as in 2009 with the scandal over MPs’ expenses. I thought that perhaps we would have learned our lesson after that, but last year, with the Owen Paterson affair and all the stories about MPs with second, third and fourth jobs—and the amount of time they gave to them and the amount of money they earned—it became perfectly apparent that the sense of entitlement continues. Unless we can change that sense of entitlement—the culture in this House—we will not change the standing in which we are held by the public.
Why do we find ourselves in this situation? Why do we keep coming back to this place, time and again, where we become our own worst enemies? I can answer that question in two words: safe seats. The existence of
areas where parties can depend on the return of a Member of Parliament with a majority of tens of thousands without making any real effort creates that sense of entitlement.
Someone offering themselves for re-election should never be a formality, but for many people elected to this House it is exactly that. Follow the money and look at the expenses returns: in marginal seats the expenses are right up to the limit, and in the so-called safe seats the party makes the smallest possible expenditure. We talk about having a national election, but in truth we campaign only in an ever-reducing base of marginal constituencies.