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Lord Tyler: My Lords, this has been a fascinating and very thoughtful debate, not least in the maiden contributions of my noble friend Lord Lee and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor.
I had a very small, walk-on part in the Power inquiry. I was, first, very interested in it as a concept; secondly, very intrigued; and, finally, very impressed. I should like to place on record the thanks of the whole House, I think, to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and her team. Above all, it succeeded where so many others have failed in securing the direct involvement of a huge number of people—not least, young people—outside the Westminster village and outside the usual political anorak group. I went to the conference at the end of the exercise. The many, many hundreds of people there were not the usual suspects. I have been involved all my political life in this sort of circle and there were people I did not know. That in itself is a great tribute to this exercise.
I believe there are two seminal reasons for the decline in interest, participation and commitment of British citizens in political institutions. First, the continuing and escalating failure of our systems to clearly represent and implement their democratic choices; and, secondly, the shattered hopes and expectations of those who put their faith in promises of change and improvement which did not then occur. I shall concentrate on the first, with only a brief reference to the second.
As I had a role in producing a draft Bill on the reform of your Lordships' House with the late Robin Cook, Ken Clarke, Tony Wright and George Young, which was specifically endorsed by the Power commission, I will be very modest and keep completely off that subject. Instead, as a former Member of Parliament, shadow Leader of the Commons and a constitutional reform spokesman, I want to concentrate on the Power analysis of the shortcomings of the House of Commons.
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It is interesting to see what a good debate we have had here when, as far as I know, there has been no reference to the Power commission in any substantial form down the Corridor. I note, incidentally, that four of us speaking in today's debate are refugees from that place—only four—and I am the most recent, so I suppose that I come with the scars to show for it.
In essence they have shown in this report that the citizens of this country believe that our representative parliamentary system has become dysfunctional and, in the current fashionable phrase, not fit for purpose. At a time when so many are busy challenging the legitimacy of this House—with some justification—it is surely a healthy corrective for us to examine the legitimacy of the House of Commons.
In the first general election which attracted my interest—in 1955, at school, when I was very young and na-ve, so I was the Labour candidate—96.1 per cent of the national vote went to either the Conservative or Labour parties; the winning party gained a fraction under half of the total vote, just under 50 per cent, and every vote seemed to matter. The turnout was 76.8 per cent. Most important of all, the result reflected what the people had voted for and could be seen to have done so.
Fifty years later, in 2005, what do we see? Only 67.5 per cent voted for those two parties, only 35.2 per cent voted for the winning party—21 per cent of the registered electorate—which, nevertheless, won for it an overall majority of 66 in the House of Commons. In huge swathes of the country the outcome seemed entirely predictable and the turnout was a miserable 61.3 per cent. The average figure disguised huge variations, with the safest seats typically scoring little more than half that of the most marginal.
Election turnout is not, of course, the most effective test—it is not the only litmus test—of a healthy democracy, as many noble Lords have said already, but if such a substantial proportion cannot be motivated to pop into their polling station, and have good reason to think it is a waste of time, that must surely worry all democrats. A whole generation is getting out of the habit of voting.
In some areas, of course, there was no representation at all for one or other of the three major parties. Labour gained nearly a quarter of the votes in Cambridgeshire and won no seats; the Conservatives did the same in Cleveland and won no seats; while in Cornwall we now have a Tory-free zone and a Labour-free zone. The Conservatives achieved some 50,000 more votes than Labour in England but ended up with 92 fewer seats. Chris Patten and others have referred to the fact that if it does not change its attachment to first-past-the-post the Conservative Party now faces built-in distortions of gigantic proportions.
Local representation can be equally haphazard. In the recent May council elections, the Conservatives won 40.8 per cent of the votes in the London borough of Kingston, compared to the Liberal Democrats' 38.5 per cent, but the latter retained control, winning 25 seats to the former's 21. In Birmingham, Labour had the largest share of the vote but the
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Conservatives had the most seats. In some councils where party supporters recorded substantial numbers of votes, they got no seats at all—the Conservatives in Cambridge, Labour in Richmond and the Liberal Democrats in Croydon.
For those noble Lords who need more evidence, the report published yesterday by ERS, The Great Local Votes Swindle, demonstrates some extraordinary distortions. No wonder voters feel cheated. Some 54.8 per cent of the votes cast in the Birmingham elections were cast for losing candidates and a further 18.2 per cent contributed to excess majorities, making a total of 73 per cent of votes effectively "wasted". No wonder even registered electors do not bother to vote; no wonder an increasing number of citizens do not even bother to register.
The one certainty of the past 50 years, between 1955 and 2005, has been the constant trend towards greater uncertainty. The linking thread has been a consistent reduction in linkage—reflecting also, of course, a reduction in identification with social class—between the nation's wish and the electoral outcome. There has also been a dramatic drop in the membership of the three major parties. This has identified a most important change in our society. There is less personal identification with the various parties. In fact, it has almost halved during that period.
There have been attempts to tinker with the system, which have had minimal impact. My noble friend Lord Greaves referred to the compulsory postal voting scheme, and I believe that the Electoral Commission has quite rightly objected to what was, to a large extent, an open door to minor corruption. It is already clear that that will not make a major change. Indeed, there have been attempts to improve the registration process, but people—particularly in the 18 to 30 age group—will not bother to register if they think the whole process is pointless.
Last year, of course, there were some important elections in other parts of the world. In New Zealand, where everybody knows that every vote counts, electoral registration reached 95.2 per cent—they were slightly disappointed, but we could do with that.
Reference has already been made to the fact that there is at present a secret and incestuous review of electoral systems, apparently still chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister. But it is anybody's guess what will come out of that because it is not transparent and, in particular, it seems to be looking only, as Ministers have confessed, at recent experience in the United Kingdom. Surely, international comparisons of the kind to which I have just referred are important. We should all be asking that that particular exercise now be made transparent, inclusive and independent, and not simply be a government exercise.
Presiding over the increasing but avoidable democratic deficit could prove a lasting legacy for Mr Blair. I believe that he will have to consider this issue again in the next few months if that is not to be the case. The blatant injustice of the system to the voter—not to the politicians or the parties—is clearly the most powerful reason for doing something about
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it. One can hardly blame the 40 per cent of those who could vote but refused to do so when they could see that it was so pointless. Again, international comparison showed that last year in Germany the turnout was 77.7 per cent and in New Zealand over 80 per cent. As the noble Baroness's commission has so rightly noted, turnout is not the only health check on the body politic but it is the most tangible one.
The ignominious retreat from the promises of 1997, which were so implicit in the agreement that my noble friend Lord Maclennan and Robin Cook negotiated before 1997, have been very damaging to the whole reputation of the business of politics. The Power commission pulls no punches. It identified as essential:
"A responsive electoral system—which offers voters a greater choice and diversity of parties and candidates—should be introduced for elections to the House of Commons, House of Lords and local councils in England and Wales to replace the first-past-the-post system".
It has been noted that the report also advocated the use of the single transferable vote to maximise voter choice and minimise party dominance.
In his book New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country, published just before the 1997 election victory—I took it out of the House of Commons Library and was interested to find that only one person had read it before me—Mr Blair pledged,
"an end to hereditary peers sitting in the House of Lords as the first step to a properly directly elected second chamber, and the chance for the people to decide after the election the system by which they elect the government of the future".
Just a few paragraphs later, he emphasised the nature of these commitments:
"The party I lead will carry out in government the programme we provide in our Manifesto beforehand. Nothing more, nothing less, that is my word. We deliver what we promise. We don't promise what we can't deliver".
At Prime Minister's Questions on 9 February last year, I asked him which of those two broken promises he most regretted. I leave it to your Lordships to see from Hansard that I did not really receive an answer—no surprise at that.
The second major cause of public disenchantment with politics and politicians is the widespread perception that you cannot trust the system to deliver what it and they promise. The rosy dawn of 2 May 1997, when even those who would never dream of voting Labour thought that they could detect a fresh, transparent, inclusive approach in our democracy, is now a distant memory. I am struck with the increasing detachment of Ministers from the day-to-day concerns and aspirations of their citizenship as the years go by. To misquote the noble Lord, Lord Acton:
I am a firm believer in the parliamentary system and we have had some notable victories, but we still have some important challenges to come, not least to see whether your Lordships' House will remain a fully appointed Chamber of Tony's cronies or whether we can do something better. Again, I welcome the recommendations of the Power commission.
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Where does that leave us? Churchill urged politicians 50 years ago to trust the people, but what if they do not trust the politicians or the political system? A Daily Telegraph poll on 22 May showed that trust in Labour Ministers is now at 20 per cent, in leading Conservatives it is 19 per cent, and in Liberal Democrat leaders it is 25 per cent—much better. Compare that with family doctors at 89 per cent and judges at 77 per cent—very relevant to today's discussions on the role of judges. Admittedly, "my local MP" scores 44 per cent—across parties. Journalists on the red-top tabloid newspapers, who so often attack all those within the political system, rate only 12 per cent.
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