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Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet): I apologise to the House for the fact that I missed the first part of the debate. As you are aware, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I was chairing a Standing Committee.
I shall make a straightforward contribution on behalf of my constituents in North Thanet and those living in the Euro-constituency of East Kent, in which I also live.
At Question Time this afternoon, the Prime Minister told the House that this was a device of the Tory hereditary peers designed to wreck a piece of legislation that the House wanted. You know me well enough, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to know that I would not for one moment suggest that the Prime Minister misled the House, but there is some case for saying that he tried to mislead the British public who might have been watching on television.
The matter has nothing to do with Tory hereditary peers. The argument is simple. It concerns the right of the individual elector to vote for an individual candidate of the party of his or her choosing. The rest is a smokescreen. I shall give two examples--one theoretical and one literal--of the practical effect, beginning with the literal example.
For the past four and a half years, the Euro-constituency of East Kent has been represented by a Labour Member. There are many things that that Member has not done which might have furthered the interests of his constituents, which is a source of some criticism. There are things that he has done which are also a source of criticism. Specifically, he claims authorship of the European ferry passenger registration directive, which will affect the livelihoods of people working on the cross-channel ferries.
Hon. Members may not be aware that, if that directive is introduced, it will require every man, woman and child travelling back and forth across the channel to register their name, age and sex, before travelling. As a result, the queues from the channel ports will stretch far back along the roads, and the ferries will be disadvantaged. One MEP has been responsible for that legislation, which has deeply angered his constituents. I cannot tell whether that anger will manifest itself to such a degree that he will be ejected from his seat at the next election, but I know that the electorate of East Kent want the opportunity to voice judgment on his stewardship of his seat.
Under the proposals before us, that MEP has been placed by the Labour party at the top of the list. Unless nobody in East Kent or the south-east votes Labour--dream on--that MEP will be there for life, provided that he stays on-message and keeps his nose clean. That cannot be democratic.
Let us consider a theoretical situation.
Mr. Bermingham:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Gale:
No. The hon. Gentleman intervenes on virtually everyone. I want to be brief.
Consider the case of a Labour voter who is anti-abortion and wants to vote for candidates to his or her moral liking. If that voter casts a vote and if the
Labour candidate at the top of the list is pro-abortion, the voter is inevitably voting for a moral principle that he or she abhors. That is not democratic.
No, the issue is nothing to do with the hereditary peerage. It is to do with the right of one voter to exercise his or her vote for the candidate of his or her choice, of whatever political party and moral persuasion.
The Prime Minister said at Question Time this afternoon--with considerable arrogance, some of us felt--that, were we to go back to the old system--the one that everyone understands, first past the post, one member one seat, win or lose--the Conservative party would indubitably win fewer seats in the European elections. That is a chance that we are prepared to take in defence of a principle: the right of the individual to exercise his or her vote as he or she wishes. That is the principle that the Prime Minister seeks to abolish.
Mr. Bermingham:
I was sad that the hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) would not let me intervene, and accused me of intervening all over the place. I do not. I intervene only when an hon. Member makes a patently bad point, as I see it. I expect that others intervene in my speeches if I make patently bad points. That is what the Chamber is all about--at least, it used to be when the hon. Gentleman and I first came here. There seems to be a little intolerance in the Opposition these days, but these things happen. He well knows that, under the current system, if a Member has what is called a safe seat, he or she will be there for life--assuming that that Member obeys the party rules.
Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest):
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because he has just made a patently bad point. If a so-called safe seat ensured that a Member was elected for life, 100 of my former colleagues would be sitting beside me this evening. However, under first past the post, they were thrown out.
Mr. Bermingham:
That is because they were patently not safe seats. So we return to the subject at hand.
I have spoken several times about this matter, and I am sad that my old and hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Michie) is not in the Chamber. I intended to try to persuade him not to waste his vote by abstaining. That is what one does when one abstains: one makes no point one way or the other.
We have reached a situation where the Government--my party--wish to put their political will before the country. At the end of the day, the people will decide whether the system is good or bad. If the system is bad, they will thump us. The Government wish to introduce a system that will be reviewed in due course. At this stage--on the fifth occasion--surely the House of Commons has the right to tell the Lords that this is the will of the people.
The measure was in the manifesto, and it has been accepted by members of the governing party. Labour Members are not rolling about the aisles in rebellion. I accept that there has been the odd vote against the measure and the odd abstention--such is the entitlement of any hon. Member. However, the overwhelming bulk of the Government party has voted consistently for the measure in its present form.
I say to the Lords: that is the will of the people. If their will as expressed by the Government is wrong, the people will surely tell us by voting against us. The next referendum--as it were--on this subject should be in June next year. It is time that this ping-pong farce ended.
Mr. Peter Bottomley:
In response to the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham), I contend that, if the voters had wanted a closed-list system, we would have seen some evidence of that desire. If the focus groups had suggested to the Government that the people wanted a closed-list system, it would have been stated specifically in the Labour party manifesto. The truth is that not a single party represented in the House included the closed-list system in its manifesto. It is worth repeating the words of the bishop who said last night in another place:
We turn to the question of support for the form of proportional representation that the Government are attempting to force through Parliament. This time, I will put my question to the House, not the Minister. Will those Labour Back Benchers who embrace the closed-list system as their personal preference intervene on me now? Not one Labour Back Bencher is prepared to state that that is his or her personal preference.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Howarth):
Was the hon. Gentleman not in the Chamber earlier this evening when several Labour Members spoke in favour of precisely that system?
Mr. Bottomley:
Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will bear witness to the fact that even the Minister has not declared that the closed-list system is his personal preference. The hon. Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney) said that he was 150 per cent. behind the single-member constituency. I have made my point. The Minister failed to answer my question during his winding-up speech on Monday: he could not name one Labour Back Bencher who has disclosed that this system is his or her personal preference. We know how the Government Whips can force Labour Members through the Lobby.
"I believe that we shall be doing the right thing by the democratic principles which have prevailed in this country for a very long time."--[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 November 1998; Vol. 594, c. 1148.]
There are two constitutional principles involved. The first is that the governing party with a majority in the House of Commons should expect to get its way. If the Government were to accept the amendments, they would still have a proportional representation system--albeit not the one on which they have lately decided to insist. The second principle is that the second Chamber tries to defend the rights of the voters. For example, the House of Lords has the opportunity of preventing the House from extending the life of a Parliament. Those are the kinds of democratic principle that the second Chamber represents.
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