European Parliament Elections Bill — House of Commons, 2016-03-04
Topic: Government Operations
Robert Owen Biggs Wilson (Conservative, Centre-right): That is the first time I have heard of the Droop quotient. Obviously, it is something the hon. Gentleman is very familiar with. We are not proposing to restore first past the post at European elections. This is a debate about a closed and an open system for candidates, so we will not be proposing that we go back to the first past the post system Helpful research, which the hon. Gentleman might be interested in, was produced by the House of Commons Library, explaining that at Lords Third Reading a Conservative amendment based on an open list system modelled on the Finnish system was successful. Members of the other place pressed this amendment and eventually the Government used the Parliament Act to take the Bill through in the following Session. The result was the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, which introduced a closed list system. This was used for the first time in the June 1999 European parliamentary elections. The European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002 superseded the 1999 Act and made provision for the closed list system to be used for elections to the European Parliament in Great Britain I should also explain that, following the Matthews case, the European Parliament (Representation) Act 2003 extended the franchise for UK elections to the European Parliament to Gibraltar. The Act provided for Gibraltar to be combined with an existing region and, following a recommendation from the Electoral Commission, Gibraltar has been combined with the South West region for the purposes of European parliamentary elections It is important to note that under European law Council decision 2002/772/EC, which amends the 1976 Act of the European Parliament concerning the election of Members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage, Members are now required to adopt a proportional voting system for elections to the European Parliament. The decision was made with the agreement of all member states, including the then UK Government. As I have indicated, the current system for European parliamentary elections in the UK was put in place by the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999 before the requirement in European legislation for a proportional system was introduced It might be helpful if I set out briefly the key features of the closed list system that has been used for European parliamentary elections in Great Britain since 1999. Elections to the European Parliament are currently held every five years. For the purposes of European parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom, Great Britain is divided into 11 electoral regions. Each region must have a minimum of three MEP seats. There are nine regions in England: East Midlands has five seats, Eastern has seven, London eight, North East three, North West eight, South East 10, South West, which includes Gibraltar, six, West Midlands seven and Yorkshire and the Humber six. Scotland, which has six MEP seats, and Wales, which has four, each form an electoral region for the purposes of the European parliamentary elections In Great Britain, under the closed list system, electors have one vote, which they may cast for a party or an independent candidate. The seats in each region are allocated to parties in proportion to the number of votes they receive, using the d’Hondt formula.