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6.10 pm
Mr. Alan Keen (Feltham and Heston): I add my welcome and congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Benn) on his excellent maiden speech and look forward to debating with him in future. I speak as secretary of the first-past-the-post group. I had no idea that my hon. Friend would speak today, but I, too, had Derek Fatchett's name in mind as he was chairman of the first-past-the-post group.
We will not forget Derek for many reasons and that is one of them. I played cricket with him many times and went on two tours abroad with him. I knew Derek and his wife Anita very well. He was well-respected as a Minister in west London, where the hon. Member for Leeds, Central gave so much to politics. The Asian community there trusted him to deal with the politics of their native countries. It is sad that we no longer have Derek to pursue solutions to some of the tremendously difficult problems to which he applied his considerable skills.
I oppose the motion and support the Government amendment because the Government are committed to a referendum on the issue. I am proud to be on the Government Benches. It is sometimes difficult to convince people that the Government have carried out so many of their promises, and that that was the case at the European elections. That is such a rarity.
Over the years, there have been many debates on proportional representation, but, until recently, they have been theoretical. We have now experienced the practicalities and we have seen the results in Scotland and Wales. I shall leave the details to others, but it is worth repeating some of the points that have been raised.
The slogan used by those in favour of proportional representation is "Fair Votes". Of course, in Scotland, fair votes helped them into government and that is hardly fair. Nobody can dispute that.
Let me raise another concern. I have been to several party conferences held by those who advocate proportional representation. Anyone who has not done so
should go along. It is interesting even for those of us who disagree. I always had the impression that most of the people who attended were either politicians or politicians to be. However, democracy is not really for politicians but for the people. We are here to carry out the wishes of the people and it is the people who really matter.
The greatest example of public involvement in politics is what people do at general elections. However high an opinion we may have of ourselves, the public do not vote Governments in; they vote them out. If we introduce proportional representation, we shall take away for ever the electorate's strongest weapon. Under proportional representation, if, at the end of the term, the Scottish electorate decides that it has had enough of the Labour Government, I do not believe that the Liberal Democrats will disappear. If I were Foreign Secretary, I would come up with a wonderful argument as to why it would be good for the British public if I stayed on and worked with the other party. I would argue that the wonderful experience that I had had would be useful to a different Prime Minister. Even I could come up with that argument. I fear that, if we introduce proportional representation, we shall take away the public's final weapon.
Mrs. Laing:
Does the hon. Gentleman think that it is a coincidence that Lord Jenkins should invent a system, the only beneficiary of which is the Liberal Democrat party?
Mr. Keen:
I entirely agree with the hon. Lady.
Mr. Stephen Twigg:
The point has been made that the commission was chaired by a Liberal Democrat peer. However, two of the other members of the commission are Labour peers, the fourth is a Conservative peer and the fifth is a civil servant. Does my hon. Friend think that they all set out to do something to benefit the Liberal Democrats?
Mr. Keen:
The coalition that put together the proposal shows what a coalition Government would produce. I attended the meeting in the Grand Committee Room when Lord Jenkins put his proposals. I recall a comment by an hon. Member who is also a Member of the Welsh Assembly. When Lord Jenkins introduced the proposals, he said that he had fought so many elections--I have forgotten how many--and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) said, "I have fought a similar number of elections, but all for the same party."
Some of the muddle associated with having representatives without constituencies occurred in my own borough the day after the European elections when the only Liberal Democrat MEP for London suddenly appeared in the headlines promising to save Chiswick pool. If she can do that, all credit to her, but it has absolutely nothing to do with her. That is what happens when Members do not have their own constituencies. They will be wandering about making publicity statements without any means of carrying out their promises. We must remember when we debate electoral systems that we are talking about what happens not just at the first election under proportional representation,
but at the next election and the one after. It will not be possible for the public to judge who has done what and whether they should be re-elected.
Mr. Hayes:
The hon. Gentleman talks about the detachment of the elected person from responsibility. Does he agree that there is also a detachment from accountability, because people will not be able to judge how well or badly their representative has done? It has been said that, at the European elections, people felt that they could not pin responsibility on to an individual candidate. That robs ordinary men and women of their sense of what democracy is all about.
Mr. Keen:
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman and thank him for his intervention.
Although I understand that there are flaws in the system in respect of total votes, I support the first-past-the-post system. I serve my constituents in the best way that I can, although I do not always enjoy it. Only last Friday, I spent six or seven hours in my advice surgeries. It is pretty tough having to face people knowing that they are attacking the Government whom I support. Of course, they also attack the previous Government, but, after two years, it is difficult always to blame them. It is pretty tough facing people who do not have adequate homes--or have no homes at all--or people whose families have been left in Somalia or Kosovo and cannot be traced. I am the only person to whom they can turn for help. I make an effort to tackle Ministers as hard as I can to try to get a result. It matters to me because those people are my constituents. The main reason why I support first past the post is accountability.
Finally, we should not restrict our research into voting systems to electoral reform versus first past the post. By that, I am not talking about allowing people to vote electronically.
Most people do not like politicians. We think more of ourselves most of the time than they think of us--nobody here would disagree with that. The biggest complaint of electors is that they do not always get what they vote for. We should investigate the use of electronic media to allow voters to give their opinions, although I am not talking about referendums on every issue that comes along.
We should look also at term limits, to limit the time that a Member of Parliament can serve. I would exclude from that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), who is worth 20 ordinary Members of Parliament. However, it is a principle that I should like us to look at. The President of the United States has a term limit of eight years, and there is a good reason for that. President Reagan--probably the last person whom I would have expected to become involved in arms reduction talks--made progress with Gorbachev because he wanted to achieve something before he had to relinquish office. When people argue whether that is a good thing--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Gentleman's time is up.
Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest):
The point about any democratic electoral system is that it should give power to the people. The big problem with the
Many points have been made comparing the AV-plus system to first past the post, and I shall not repeat them. However, any alternative vote system where candidates are listed in order of preference is most unfair and unproportional--exactly the opposite of the argument that Labour Members have made. If they are listed in order of preference, and nobody gets more than 50 per cent. of the vote, the votes of the least-popular candidate are redistributed. Once again, if no one gets more than 50 per cent., the votes of the second-least-popular candidate are redistributed yet again. In fact, the more eccentric the candidate for whom one votes, the more one's votes count, because the votes are redistributed two or three times. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) has coined a phrase for this: "Vote wacky, vote often." That is what AV plus would do.
Mr. Stephen Twigg:
If the system is so wacky, why does the Conservative party use it to elect its leader? When the hon. Lady talks about wacky candidates, is she referring to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), whose second preferences determined the outcome of the Conservative party's leadership election?
6.21 pm
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