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6.15 pm
Mr. Martin Linton (Battersea): I have three questions that I hope will introduce new points into the debate and be addressed by the Opposition.
My first question concerns the nature of the system that the Opposition propose. They favour not the so-called Belgian open-list system--which the Government considered and rejected--but the Finnish open-list system. As far as I can establish, that system is used by onlytwo countries in the European Union--Finland and Luxembourg--and I have not heard any Labour or Liberal Democrat Member speak in support of it. The system prevents voters from voting for parties: they can vote only for candidates. That leads me to my first vital question.
Mr. Lansley:
Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House why the Government have chosen not to return to another place, in lieu of the Lords amendments, an amendment in favour of the Belgium list system, if that is the system that he--by implication--and the Liberal Democrats support?
Mr. Linton:
The Government considered that course of action and decided against it.
Mr. Linton:
I suggest that the hon. Gentleman ask the Minister.
My first question for the Opposition is: how will the system work? How will you order your candidates on your list? As I understand it, there are only two ways to do that under this system. You can put the candidates either in alphabetical or in random order. Should you decide to put your candidates in alphabetical order--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton) keeps using the term "you". I do not have any candidates to put in order--at least, not yet.
Mr. Linton:
I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was of course referring to potential Conservative candidates. I have a copy of the Conservative party's list of candidates for the European elections, who are listed under the party name. If those candidates were re-listed alphabetically, Javad Arain, who is currently No. 4, would jump into first place in the east midlands. This is a perfectly relevant question, because that is precisely what happens in Finland. That country has an alphabetocracy: the people whose names begin with the letters A and B are much more likely to be elected.
In the eastern region, Sir Graham Bright--former Parliamentary Private Secretary to the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major)--would find himself in first place on the list. Most interestingly, Lord Bethell--who is now at No. 3--would go to No. 1 on the list for London. Before we take this proposal seriously, the Opposition must explain how the system would work.
My second question concerns Lord Bethell. When the issue was debated in the House of Lords last night, two of the three Conservative peers who are standing in the European elections voted with the Opposition. The third, Lord Bethell, did not vote.
I ask myself why Lord Bethell did not vote. We may have a clue--
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington):
From the list.
Mr. Linton:
No; we may have a clue from the letter that Lord Bethell wrote to The Daily Telegraph, which said:
My third question is intended to be helpful: have Opposition Front Benchers considered the effect on their own party lists were--heaven forbid--that system to be adopted? If there were seven, eight or nine names on a list in alphabetical order, and a vote could be registered only by voting for one of those candidates, there would be increased temptation for people to vote for Europhile or Europhobe Conservative candidates. There would immediately be a campaign to support the Europhobe candidates, which would no doubt be backed by a large sum of money. Many voters would want to move those candidates to the top of the list.
On the other hand, Conservative voters, in their maturity, may prefer the Europhile candidates, and may fill the European Parliament--
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield):
Does that not precisely illustrate the point about voter choice? The system proposed by the other place would give voters the ability to make that choice, which the Government's proposals would deny them.
Mr. Linton:
That illustrates the point very well, but can Conservative Members explain what would happen if Conservative voters returned to the European Parliament only pro-European Conservative MEPs? Those MEPs would stand on their own manifesto as pro-Europeans and pro-single currency, but we understand that the Conservative party manifesto puts off a single currency until the election after the election after next. On whose manifesto would those MEPs be elected--their own, or the party's?
As soon as Conservative Members introduced that dog's breakfast of a system, they would have not only serious problems with different campaigns for Europhile and Europhobe candidates, but a complete lack of clarity about who those people would represent and on whose manifesto they were elected. It would be in the interests of the whole House if Opposition Front Benchers admitted that they supported the amendment, of which they know little, for opportunistic reasons. If it were enacted, it would damage their party more than any other.
Mr. Lansley:
The debate is becoming positively surreal on the Government Benches: we have arrived at a point at which the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton) is trying to protect the Conservative party from internal divisions and debate over Europe. I had thought that the opposite was precisely the Government's objective, on all occasions.
The hon. Member for Battersea does that because--as distinct from his speech on Monday night--he did not want to explain his own preference. That preference was clearly stated on Monday: he favoured an open list.
Mr. Lansley:
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to converse with his Front Benchers about why they did not adopt a Belgian list. Of course, that was not the Conservative party's proposal; we have been clear all the way about through the fact that we would prefer the election to be fought under the first-past-the-post system.
The Government said in their manifesto that they wanted a proportional representation system. The Liberal Democrats support such a system--they want the Belgian system, as does the hon. Member for Battersea--and the overwhelming majority of Labour Members who have spoken want a PR system and an open list. The Belgian system is available to them; why have the Government said no? They have said no for one reason: they want a closed list. Why do they want a closed list? They want to dictate who is elected as a Labour Member of the European Parliament. They do not want the electorate to choose, and they do not even want Labour party supporters to choose; they want to choose themselves.
As was rightly said in the other place, a choice has to be made between the electorate and the selectorate--the selectorate of the Millbank tower panels, which have chosen the lists for the Labour party. That is the decision that has to be made. The Lords returning the Bill to this place, amended on each occasion, is far from being an affront to democracy; they have done so in pursuance of democracy, because they seek to defend voter choice.
I have read the debates in the Lords, and hon. Members will know that I have attended the debates in the Chamber on each occasion. It is perfectly clear that, on each occasion, the Lords have not been dragooned into going in this direction by the Conservatives. Cross-Bench peers have overwhelmingly chosen to send those amendments back to this House, and the decisions have been made on the balance of the argument. Each time, they have been fed by the simple fact that, in debates in this House, Members of the governing party have been unwilling to support their Front Benchers.
"The open list offers a choice so wide as to be confusing, especially since hardly any of the several hundred candidates whose names will be put forward have any public profile. Ballot papers will carry 50 or more names. Hardly anyone will know them. Voters will mark their crosses at random."
That is the view of the most senior Conservative peer who has already been a Member of the European Parliament expressing his views on the Opposition motion. He went on:
"A change to the open list will also cause conflict between candidates of the same party, who will be competing as much against their colleagues as against their adversaries. One advantage of the closed list is that in London, for instance--where I hope to stand--all 10 of us Conservatives are in the same 'job lot'. A vote for one is a vote for us all."
Those are the views of the most prominent Member of the House of Lords who is a candidate in the European elections. How does he square that with Conservative Front-Bench support in the House of Commons for a system that he has denounced?
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