Local Government Elections (Referendum) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-12-15
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Balfe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I begin with a couple of personal declarations First, as of today, I am still a member of the Venice Commission’s Council for Democratic Elections—a body partly funded by the Council of Europe. I also have a long history—a lot of form, you might say—in this area. Some 45 years ago, I became the political secretary of the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society, which used proportional representation as a method of election. I saw its use bring many disparate groups into the same body to form the policies to carry the co-op forward; I did so very clearly because we used proportional representation, but the other big co-op in London—the London Co-operative Society—used first past the post. As a result, they spent nearly all their time fighting each other; we got together and managed to work our way forward. I should also declare an interest because, for many years—until circumstances intervened—I was a member of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, which I thank for slipping me some information to help with today’s debate. We still remain friends, if not in the same party My contention is that, in the last 15 to 20 years, we have seen a shift towards usage of various forms of proportional representation in the election of bodies in the United Kingdom that have legislative duties. My proposal is extremely modest. All it asks is that the Secretary of State brings forward a law that is very similar to, if not modelled on, the Welsh Government’s proposal. Earlier this year, the Welsh Government expressed their belief that, "councils should be able to decide which voting system to use" Their consultation document said: "As such, the Welsh Government proposes to make legislation which will allow Councils in Wales to decide which voting system best reflects the needs of their local people and communities" That is all the Bill attempts to do. It does not lay down a system. It does not even say that local authorities must change their system. It is a permissive Bill, with hurdles According to the Library briefing, in January 2016 in the House of Lords the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, argued against PR. He said that, "it is often a mish-mash of policies hammered out behind closed doors, which I argue is hardly democratic".—[Official Report, 28/1/16; col. 1442.] My experience of most democracy is of policy hammered out behind closed doors in a mish-mash. Whatever the political group, you tend to find that it covers a wide variety of opinions. Although on occasions, particularly during the last coalition Government, much play is made of the manifesto, throughout most of my political life the manifesto has not been the guiding light. If it has been, it is used with discretion by people who find bits of it that happen to justify whatever they want to do at any given time I saw that there was a debate in the House of Commons in October 2017. The Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office, Chris Skidmore, said that first past the post has an advantage because it is less complicated, takes less time and resources to administer, and is better understood by the electorate. If it is better understood, why is it that only 30% to 35% of people vote? Maybe what they understand is that in most places their vote is totally wasted. I am not sure that that level of understanding is a justification for keeping the system in place; it is a clear argument for changing the system My experience, both in the Venice Commission but also going back the 50 years that I have been around government, is that parties are strongly addicted to the system that helps them to win. I have been involved in a number of arguments in both of the parties I have belonged to that have boiled down to, "How can we get this through, because it benefits our party? Can we get this ward brought into the constituency, because it will probably vote one way or the other?". People have seldom said, "How can we reflect the will of the electorate?"; they generally say, "How can we shape it so that we can win?" One of the ways we see this is in the way local government is put together. We have three-member wards. What on earth is the intellectual justification for the number three? Is it a magic Chinese number? I suggest, from all the evidence I have from talking to people, that the number three is big enough that any local campaign will find it very difficult to get elected. That is what happens in the area I live in, which is probably the most expensive postcode in the city of Cambridge—so, clearly, it is a safe Labour seat—but it does contain some quite poor areas. The paradox is that the Conservatives often get their votes from these more modest areas of the ward. There is no reason behind the wards in my own city; they make no sense whatever. They do not bring communities together, they bring numbers together. I do not think they make sense, and the Bill aims to leave local government to organise itself I will confess that on two occasions in the last 20 years I have voted for the Green Party. I voted as a Labour Party MEP for the Green Party because I was faced with an election in which the Labour Party put out material attacking the education policies, which were of course the responsibility of the Conservative county council, not the local council that the election was about, and the Liberal party put out leaflets attacking the Labour Party for health service cuts. The health service was also nothing to do with Cambridge City Council. The Conservatives did not put out any leaflets and when I asked why I had not had a leaflet from them, they said, "Oh, we have just put up a paper candidate". The Green candidate put out a leaflet which was certainly the worst prepared—a reflection on their resources, not their intellectual ability—which said what they were going to do about cleaning the streets, emptying the bins, looking after the local services and shifting the bus stop. I thought, "This leaflet is actually talking about the things that matter to us". Unfortunately, the Green candidate did not win, though they did come second, but I think that turning the electoral system in this way would help parties concentrate on what matters to them and what matters locally. It would give a real incentive. I have no hesitation in saying that I would not wish Cambridge City Council to be run by the Green Party, but I would certainly like to see it represented within the city council because the ideas it puts forward in Cambridge reflect the views, it is regularly shown, of around 15% to 20% of the population and they deserve a hearing in the council that makes the decisions. That is what is at the heart of the Bill There are two safeguards within it. First, 10% of the electors must request a referendum, so it cannot just be sprung on people. There has to be a demand, and in order for there to be a demand there would have to be an education campaign. If it were 1% or 2% it would be easy. If it were 10% the parties would have to go out and convince people that it was worth having the referendum. Secondly, the council would then have to ask for the referendum, so there would be a double hurdle to jump over. Also, in doing that, in order to get it through there would clearly have to be some consensus at local level and there would have to be local demand, through the papers and through a local campaign. So this is not something that is going to be sprung on people, nor does the Bill say what form of PR should be adopted. It gives local government the freedom to look at what suits the local area. Of course, it could decide that the local area is best suited by no change at all: it gives that freedom My personal preference has always been for the additional member system. We often forget that the additional member system was drawn up by the British Labour Government in the 1940s when it wrote what became the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. Ashley Bramall—a name that will certainly be familiar to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter—was one of the drafters of that constitution. We have form when dealing with other people; what I am suggesting with the Bill is that maybe we should have a bit of form when dealing with ourselves. I am sure that we can have a lot of debate around systems: that is not the purpose of this very modest Bill. The purpose of the Bill is to advance us just as far as the Welsh Government have already got, to start a debate and to make it possible for change to be initiated at a local level. I thank noble Lords for listening, I look forward to listening to the debate and to responding in due course, and I beg to move.