My Lords, I start by referencing my interests as a councillor in Kirklees and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I will speak about three areas: the principle of the proposals, the practicalities and accountability. I appreciate that the passing of the Elections Act
made these changes inevitable and I am not opposing them today, but it is worth pointing out some of the consequences of what is being done.
The Minister cited the 2019 Conservative manifesto commitment, also mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum,
“to support the First Past the Post system”.
It does not say anything about changing back to first past the post. The 2011 referendum was not about all elections having the alternative vote system, only parliamentary elections, so citing that example for this instance is not fair—it does not support the argument. If the Government want to make a change, they should just say so and not try to fluff it up with stuff that is not accurate.
The Explanatory Memorandum also states that moving to this system
“makes it easier for the public to express a clear preference”.
I suppose it depends on what is meant by “a clear preference”. I would not consider 40% a clear preference, which is more than likely the outcome of the changes being made. In my view—and, I think, in most people’s—a clear preference would mean a person achieving over 50% of the vote, one way or another.
The only European country that uses first past the post is Belarus. Here we are, regressing to an electoral system so out of favour in European democracies that it is used only in a dictatorial country where the election was overtaken by a coup. I suppose what I am saying is that it is a backward step.
The third principle being argued here is that first past the post reduces complexity. Voters are cleverer than we give them credit for. They can vote in many different ways. I think I have attended all the mayoral elections in my part of the world, and the number of spoiled ballot papers, which is the example used in the arguments for these changes to say that the method is difficult, is minimal. More often than not, spoiled ballot papers show voters expressing very clear views about the election altogether—I will not quote some of the comments I have seen. It is not about failing to understand the voting system; it is about not being happy with how it is done at all, or the purpose of it.
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The next argument is that it will save money. This was a struggle. The argument is that it will save about £1.7 million over 10 years across the whole of England and Wales. You are pushing an argument a bit when you get to that stage. To give an example of the number of spoiled ballot papers, I could not find the full election results—including the spoiled ballot papers, turnout and so on—for the last West Yorkshire mayoral election in 2021, but I found them for one of the districts. Out of roughly 80,000 votes cast, only 600 were spoiled, in various ways. That is fewer than 1%—more or less what it is for most elections.
The Government are making arguments about saving money and time—that is pushing it as well; I have attended all the counts for these elections, and they all get done in the periods set by election administrators. They argue that it helps people understand, that it will not be complex and that it will save money and time—all very flimsy arguments, as the supporting evidence shows.
If the Government want to go back to first past the post, so be it. It will have a knock-on effect on the way mayors in particular but also police and crime commissioners will be viewed by their residents. At the moment all mayors, because of the way the votes are redistributed, attract more than 50% of the vote. There is a legitimacy which will no longer be there if, as in West Yorkshire, first past the post gives the currently elected mayor just 40% of the vote. If she gets elected on that figure, those of us who did not cast our vote for her will not necessarily regard her as speaking for all of us, because she will not. If someone in a position such as a mayor or police and crime commissioner—a single individual speaking for a very large number of people—attracts less than half the support of those who voted, the legitimacy of the decisions they make will attract more criticism and challenge. That is not in the interests of good governance. It is a shame that that will happen, but it will.
I shall say just one thing about police and crime commissioners. When the first election for police and crime commissioners was not held on the same day as any other election, where I am in West Yorkshire a staggering 17% of the electorate decided to vote. Since then, the Government have always timetabled those elections to be on the same day, generally, as those for local authorities—to make sure that more people vote, I guess. But there was a by-election in North Yorkshire last November. About 20% of people voted in that by-election for a new police and crime commissioner, which should send everyone a message about how people view these positions. They see them as irrelevant to their lives; they have not made this huge difference in the accountability of policing for local people.
There is a challenge for the Government in considering good governance and accountability for both mayoral and police and crime commissioner decisions. We have had police and crime commissioners for a while now, and you would think that, if the public had warmed to them and could see that they made a difference, they would be more willing to cast their vote for them. The fact that they do not and that there is constant criticism of that position is something the Government need to think about again. They need to think about having one person in an area—although now they are combined, are they not? We have a West Yorkshire mayor who also deals with transport, the police and goodness knows what else, with just a little scrutiny situation underneath it all. This is no way to run a big organisation. No private company would organise in that way; it would have some independent people challenging and questioning. The fact that that is not happening with the mayor—except in London, of course, where there is a better set-up—is unacceptable in terms of democracy and accountability.
With those remarks, the Minister will be pleased to hear that I have concluded.