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Mr. Evans: No. The Conservatives would benefit under the system proposed by the Government, but if we were to go further and stretch the additional representation, the system would, of course, benefit the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru, but it is all done under the guise of fairness. We have to scratch the surface of fairness, Sir Alan, to find out exactly what the minority parties are doing. They are looking not simply for fairer representation but better representation, so we have to take it all with a pinch of salt.
As far as the other amendments tabled by Plaid Cymru are concerned, we have to be very suspicious about going down the route that they suggest. Perhaps we will have to use different criteria for the regions that will be represented by additional members.
Mr. Llwyd:
What the hon. Gentleman just said is absolute nonsense. The matters contained in the amendment are considerations that are normally applied by the Boundary Commissioner in any event.
Mr. Evans:
It would not be the first time that I have spoken nonsense, Sir Alan, and I suspect that it will not be the last.
Plaid Cymru is trying to use the system to get better representation for themselves. At the moment, each of the European constituencies has just one representative in Brussels. Under the system that we are considering, there will be four. The arguments that the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) is using to suggest that there should be changes in the system falls down completely. After all, certain constituencies are more difficult than others in terms of terrain and for social and cultural reasons.
The same applies to the boundaries. We have to take the good with the bad. The White Paper and Library papers mention population. At least there is some equality of representation, which we should consider very carefully so that the differences between the areas are not as massive as they are in some parliamentary constituencies. For example, in 1992, the Isle of Wight had a population of 90,000 and some places in Scotland had 46,000. The disparities are hardly as bad as they are in parts of Wales. We have to be careful about that.
The European boundaries may not be ideal, but at least they give some equality of representation to the people who live in those areas, and with the additional representation of four extra Members the system will be fine.
With regard to the whole gamut of the additional member system, why are we putting the cart before the horse? Lord Jenkins of Hillhead currently heads a committee considering proportional representation. It seems a little hurried to put forward this system before hearing what that committee has to say. Had we waited, some form of consensus might have been reached, although perhaps not from the Conservatives, who although they will benefit from the system suggested by the Government, cannot support it.
Mr. Gareth Thomas:
I speak in opposition to the amendments. It is an interesting fact that, when the assembly elections are conducted on 1 May 1999, it will be the first occasion in the British isles when a system of proportional representation is used. That is an interesting and challenging departure.
I cannot pretend that the system devised by the Government, to give legitimacy to the Welsh assembly and to ensure that all political parties have a stake in it, is entirely logical or coherent. At times, politics is neither logical nor coherent. However, the Government have devised the best in the circumstances, given the political asymmetry of Wales and the real danger that, had the Government decided on a first-past-the-post system, legitimacy would have been taken away from the assembly in its early years.
Credit should be given where it is due. It would have been in the Labour party's interests to insist on a first-past-the-post system in order to replicate the sort of electoral results which meant that Wales became, in that much used cliche, a Tory-free zone. But that is not the purpose behind what on any view must be regarded as an altruistic attempt to grapple with the electoral and political geography of Wales.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex):
The hon. Gentleman said that proportional representation had never been used before in the British Isles, but it is today used in Northern Ireland for the election of Members to the European Parliament. It was originally established as the electoral system for the Stormont Parliament, although the Stormont Parliament itself changed that, much to the consternation of the Government at the time.
Mr. Thomas:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for correcting what was undoubtedly an error on my part. I hope that the Committee will forgive me. None the less, it is a constitutional innovation for the United Kingdom to introduce a system of proportionality in domestic
Mr. Llwyd:
I do not want to embarrass the hon. Gentleman unduly. He has apologised most profusely once to the Chair. Perhaps he would like to apologise again. Local elections in Northern Ireland have been conducted by proportional representation for the last eight, nine or 10 years.
Mr. Thomas:
Yes, I took on board what the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) said in its entirety. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) for clarifying that point.
The Government produced a White Paper which set out the electoral system in detail and it would be wrong for the Government to depart from the regime that has been put to the people of Wales in a referendum. We should not forget that there is a real anxiety in Wales that the assembly will be expensive. We have to meet that anxiety, and to propose a further increase in the number of representatives would be counterproductive because it would be expensive. The assembly should conduct itself according to the number of Members available. I anticipate that the committee structure will not be too unwieldy. It should reflect the fact that the assembly will have to work in partnership with the House and that the assembly will be taking a strategic view of issues in Wales generally.
I congratulate the Government on their proposals for the electoral system. It is a genuine attempt to put flesh on the bones of the idea of inclusive politics; of a partnership between the people of Wales in order to give democratic legitimacy to an innovation for the British constitution.
Mr. Rhodri Morgan:
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Thomas) and the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), who made the extraordinary admission, which I have never heard before, that it was not the first time that he had spoken nonsense. That is not to say that other Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen have not spoken nonsense; it is just that this is the first time it has ever been admitted from the Front Bench, and very welcome that was.
The amendments are important because they all relate to the issue of how the legislation will ensure that the Welsh assembly has what one could call a healthy degree of opposition. No one wants one-party control. The majority party will probably be the Labour party for most of the time, although one can never predict something as unpredictable as democracy. But on the basis of the past 70 years, that is likely.
I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House will accept that the Government intend to try to ensure that there is healthy opposition. That was one of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister during his visit to Wales as Leader of the Opposition which was referred to earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for
Rhondda (Mr. Rogers). He would not have used the sort of Anglo-Welsh dialect that I am using, but he said that there must be a tidy degree of opposition in the Welsh assembly or people will fall into lazy ways.
I think that we would all accept that democracy needs challenge to work in a healthy way. The first person to make that point was my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in the Brangwyn hall in Swansea about four years ago in a speech which was either famous or notorious, according to one's point of view, when he referred to the culture of arrogance which we have seen from time to time in certain local authorities where Labour has ruled virtually unchallenged for the past 70 years.
A frisson ran round the Brangwyn hall in the Swansea Guildhall--perhaps a name which I should not mention these days--because there were councillors present who knew all too well what my right hon. Friend was talking about. It is to ensure that that culture of arrogance does not occur that the Government have decided to go for 2:1 proportional representation, using the additional member system.
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