Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-23
Topic: Government Operations
Claire Fox (Non-Affiliated, Unknown): My Lords, I used to be a full supporter of first past the post, very much in the spirit of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, in relation to accountability. However, over recent years I have started to see a problem that I wanted to raise—I am not just doing this as counselling. Because of the whole of Clause 11, we have been invited, in a way, by the Government to discuss electoral systems, and that is one of the problems with the way it has emerged. I would not be discussing it if they had not brought it in, but now that everyone else is discussing it, I will join in I was minded to support Amendment 136 until I realised that it was an amendment that would overturn a referendum, which struck me as not a good idea and not likely to fit in with my general position on these things. It is perhaps ironic to those people in this Committee arguing for proportional representation that I was elected using that method in the European elections and came top of the list. I do not know if people think that was a fully democratic system, because a lot of people did not think that I should have been there at all, or elected in that way, when I stood only for very particular reasons, as we know These are the problems with first past the post in 2022 that I cannot get my head around. Through this Bill, we want to reassure voters that elections are watertight in terms of fairness and that they represent what they want as voters. In a number of debates, we have discussed our worries about different clauses that might be seen to be disenfranchising voters—sometimes I think these are overwrought worries, but they are worries none the less. It seems to me, however, that first past the post, in lots of ways, makes many people’s votes redundant and represents a frustration with what is happening politically I remember that before the 2016 referendum I was invited to a think tank gathering at which most of the people were supporters of remaining in the European Union. They assumed that I was as well, because that is what nice think-tankers did. They said that one problem they had was that the referendum would not be taken seriously if they did not get a big turnout, so what could they do to get a big turnout? The consensus in the room was that it must be emphasised that a vote in the 2016 referendum was a once-in-a-lifetime vote where, for once, every single person’s vote would count. They went out and argued that very successfully and the nation said, "My goodness, for once my vote really will count." As a consequence, people took it seriously that they were being asked to make a big constitutional decision and that this was one election where every individual vote meant something. In the build-up to the referendum, it led to grass-roots discussion groups being set up around the country, family conferences and people getting together with their research. People took the whole thing extremely seriously and there was an atmosphere of vibrancy and buzz, with people saying, "What should we do?" as they assessed the pros and cons. People rose to the challenge that their vote counted, an idea which I think really resonated.