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5.25 pm
Mr. Robert Syms (Poole): I am one of those odd individuals who collect election results. I have the various volumes of F. W. S. Craig going back to 1832. They usually contain a health warning that, although he has put down the results, he has added a description of the parties that may not have been recognised by the candidates. For example, following the split in the Liberal party in the 1880s, some candidates are listed as Liberals and some as Liberal Unionists. The distinction required historical research.
We are unusual as a nation in that Parliament developed earlier than strong political parties, so there has always been a strong element of individualism in our political process. People have always been able to vote on a geographical basis, for individuals whom they trust with the description or political label sometimes worn quite lightly, certainly in earlier years. As time has gone by, the political process has become more intrusive.
The debate in the 1960s, as the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton) said, concerned political descriptions, which Sir Richard Sharples pointed out could be used to mislead people. We have heard several examples today. Nevertheless, I believe that a description of the political party for which the candidate is standing is a positive development. For example, in local government elections in multi-member wards, if one of the candidates is stupid enough to state that he is a farmer or a company director rather than use his political label he usually runs well below the other candidates with a political description.
A description helps voters to make a decision. We in political life like to think that every elector has had a leaflet or two and has been canvassed, but, in reality, people turn up at the polling station with little idea who the candidates are until they read the ballot paper. At least that gives them the comfort of knowing that they are voting for the candidate who best suits their political views.
I welcome the Bill as an opportunity for us to deal with abuses--Literal Democrat is the one on which we focus most--but it is no panacea. In Committee and in later stages, we shall have to test many of the propositions in it to ensure that we get it right.
The requirement that a description be no more than six words long is important, but when a party registers perhaps it should register all the other terms or uses of its name. For example, we are not only the Conservative party, but the Conservative and Unionist party, the Tory party, we can be Scottish Conservative or Welsh Conservative, and some people tell me that we are even the European People's party on occasions. It is important that registration should cover all those terms. I know that there is a party allied to the Labour party called the Co-operative party. Would that party register separately, or under the umbrella of the Labour party? All those matters need to be tested.
The registrar's worst difficulty will probably lie in determining which party can use the term Unionist. In Northern Ireland, the majority community uses numerous versions of that term, with prefixes or suffixes. That causes a good deal of confusion.
I mentioned earlier the issue of registration depriving people of broadcasting rights, and the issue of Sinn Fein. I am pleased that there is to be a Committee under the Speaker to give advice. Whatever we may say about looking ahead, circumstances will arise that no one will have anticipated, and it is sensible to establish a Committee that enables political parties to give their views to the registrar.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) referred to the difficulties of the additional member system and pointed out that, under a list system--as has been suggested by one or two academics--it may be possible to mislead people into voting for the alter ego of a major party, particularly one that wins all the first-past-the-post seats. I was reassured by what the Home Secretary said about disqualifying candidates using names very similar to those of existing political parties. It is important that people who have voted initially under the first-past-the-post system and then under the list system are not misled into voting for what they mistakenly believe to be an official party. How the electoral system that will be used in Scotland, Wales and indeed London is received will depend largely on whether people feel that it has operated fairly and has not deceived the electorate.
I want to raise a couple of issues that I raised when we debated the European Parliamentary Elections Bill. The nomination of nominees for the European parliamentary elections will stand from one election to the next: for five years, until 2004. There will be no by-elections; if someone dies or resigns, the next person on the list will inherit the seat.
It is one thing for someone who has been sworn in and has become a member of an assembly--particularly a European assembly--to decide after a few years to switch to a different party. Three years after an election, however, the first reserve on the list might decide to stop being a Liberal Democrat and join the Labour party. When a vacancy occurred, under the European Parliamentary Elections Bill, the returning officer would have to offer the post to the next available candidate. I assume that the system would give the candidate the
right to refuse, but it would not discriminate against someone who had left the political party involved. It is possible that the first reserve on a Labour, Liberal or Conservative list could inherit a seat without being a member of the relevant political party.
Given a proportional list allowing people to vote Conservative, Liberal Democrat or Labour--a system in which proportionality is intended to be the key--it would be very odd if someone who had resigned or been expelled from a political party could still inherit a seat. Five years is a long time in this context. We should not forget that such an arrangement is entirely outside our experience: under the British political system, a candidate is elected or ceases to be the candidate. An ex-candidate--which many of us have been--is very much an "ex". What happens if, four years after an election, someone who is no longer a member of a political party--perhaps owing to expulsion from it--inherits a seat? Will that person have the right to take the seat?
In New Zealand, which has a system of mixed member proportionality, some of those elected under a list system have switched parties, having given undertakings to their respective parties that they would not do so. In a famous case, a member of the Alliance became an independent. An electoral registration Bill promoted by the Labour party in New Zealand proposes that someone elected under a list system who switches to another party ought, in effect, to be resigned from Parliament. I do not think that that Bill will become law, and the issue is controversial, but we should ask whether, if people are voting for a party rather than an individual, the individual has the right to switch. Such action entirely destroys the purpose of proportionality.
There are problems with the European parliamentary system that we have implemented. There may be problems with the additional member system--that will depend on how well the Bill works--but I welcome the broad thrust of the Bill. Unlike my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield, I also welcome the introduction of symbols or emblems.
Before I was a candidate in Poole, I was a candidate in Walsall, North and encountered a difficulty that was outside my experience, as I came from Wiltshire. There were wards with a high proportion of Asians who did not speak English. In such circumstances--especially in local elections, which involve multi-member wards--ballot papers have to be produced saying "Vote for 7, 9 or 14". Symbols or emblems would enable those who do not speak English to exercise their democratic right. Blackburn may be similar, but it is certainly true of parts of the midlands. Politicians who wish to mislead people may do so by messing up the order on the ballot paper: it has been done. Emblems may well prove beneficial, especially for ethnic minorities.
Overall, I welcome the registration proposals, although it is rather sad that we have reached this stage--it is an inevitable consequence of the dreadful PR systems that we are introducing. We have an opportunity to make politics more transparent and honest and to rid ourselves of some of the discrepancies from which members of all parties have suffered.
Mr. Adrian Sanders (Torbay):
There is a long and not entirely dishonourable tradition in British politics of candidates using descriptions on ballot papers to make a point. My favourite is the description used by one by-election candidate--"Reclassify Sun Newspaper as a Comic". Other candidates have formed their own parties or pressure groups to promote issues or highlight causes: the late Bill Boakes and Sir James Goldsmith come to mind, as do the numerous stop this or stop that campaign groups formed at both local and parliamentary level.
Candidates who have fallen out with their parties, either locally or nationally, have stood as independents in the Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat interest. Others have disputed a change in a party's constitution and claimed to be members of that party's heir or successor. Social Democrat and Liberal candidates have done that in recent times.
I understood that the Bill's purpose was not to outlaw any such legitimate descriptions, but to prevent people from deliberately frustrating the democratic process by confusing voters with lookalike descriptions. Having read the Bill, however, I fear that its effects could go much further than was intended. I have a number of questions to ask the Minister. I hope that he will be able to reassure us that the specific problem of spoiler candidates is the Bill's only target.
Spoiler candidates are thieves: they steal people's votes. They violate our democracy, and legislation to outlaw them is long overdue. I know from personal experience in the 1994 European election how it feels to be a candidate for the party for which a majority of the votes were intended.
My loss, however, was not as great as that of those who filled in their ballot papers and left the polling station believing that they had voted for a Liberal Democrat rather than a Literal Democrat. The descriptions sound different, but they look the same to someone who glances quickly at a ballot paper.
The loss felt by those 10,000 voters was expressed in letters and radio phone-ins at the time, in terms used more often by people who have been recently burgled or assaulted. They felt violated--that something intangible had been taken from them without their permission. For them, it was not only that someone they had specifically voted against was going to represent them for the next five years, but that their rights had been taken away. They will be among the first to welcome legislation that prevents such a situation--as will I--but my concern is with the scope of the Bill and whether it would prevent someone from standing as a Unionist, Liberal or Co-op candidate if the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour parties registered those titles as their own.
What will happen in Northern Ireland in relation to the competing claims on the Unionist description? Would the Bill prevent a person from standing as an independent Conservative, an independent Liberal Democrat or an independent Labour candidate? Could an organisation register as the Independent party? If that were to happen, perhaps prospective council candidates would have to approach the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Bell) for their voucher, although the Home Secretary made it fairly clear that he felt that there would be one generic term for independents--but what if there were a dispute between independent candidates?
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