Vote for change – change for voting
Bubble — By Jonathan Edwards MP on September 6, 2010 11:00 am
Say aye: the bill reading expected to go through today will bring fundamental change to our elections - and our democracy
TODAY’S second reading of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill provides the real starting point of what could be the most important legislation of this Con-Dem Government.
The Bill contains two major parts – one the holding of a referendum on the alternative vote, the other the reduction of MPs from 650 to 600, and both have caused ire in their own way.
The most prominent complaint has been the decision, announced by central government without prior consultation, to hold the referendum on the same date as elections to the Parliament and Assemblies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as the English council elections.
This goes against independent reports into the holding of different elections on the same day by Gould and Arbuthnott, the former taking place after the problems held in Scottish elections in 2007.
Cost, not democracy, is the over-arching consideration for the UK Government, meaning that we in Wales are left hanging over whether we will go to the polls once, twice or even three times in a number of months. That is to say nothing about the huge administration pressures for under-staffed electoral services departments or the ordering in which ballots will be counted. The Vale of Glamorgan finished counting at 10:30am in 2007 with just the Assembly ballot papers.
There is, of course, no reason why we need to hold the referendum on an alternative vote with quite such indecent haste. The Con-Dem government want to introduce a five-year, fixed-term parliament, meaning that the next Westminster elections will be in 2015. The administrative work to host the referendum would far outweigh the effort of changing the ballot papers over four years.
Others have pointed to the irony of pointing to the cost-savings of holding ballots on the same day as other elections while at the same time proposing the introduction of an extra set of elections for police commissioners.
After all that, of course, the referendum will be on the alternative vote, rather than a more proportional system such as the single transferable vote, the system backed by Plaid Cymru and, previously, by the Liberal Democrats.
If we were discussing STV then the debate could be presented in terms of proportional and fair votes reflecting real choice, with multi-member constituencies and the end of safe seats. Yes, the Liberal Democrats would probably be the main winners, but they could argue this from behind the screen of fairness. Instead this will largely be seen as a seat-grab by the Liberal Democrats, and part of a grubby deal to get them more influence.
This failure to discuss a genuinely proportional system also impacts upon the second part of the Bill – the reduction in size of the House of Commons. Nick Clegg wants all votes to be equal in weight, and so intends to equalise the size of constituencies as well as having fewer MPs.
The effect of this on Wales will be significant – around a quarter of our seats at Westminster will disappear at the next election – our voice reduced by 25%.
But equality of vote is itself an interesting concept. By basing the constituencies on electoral registration, then there is likely to be a bias against areas with high levels of poverty and low socio-economic background where electoral registration take-up is lower than in wealthier areas.
Then there is the deeper meaning of ‘equality’ of voting. Think-tank Demos last year published a ‘power map’ of the UK, noting the areas where electors had greater ‘power’ in a swathe of political fields and where your vote was relatively meaningless.
By sticking to a first-past-the-post system we will maintain the present situation in which only a handful of swing constituencies are of importance – the Labour voter in Kent and the Tory voter in Blaenau Gwent will not be empowered by these changes. Nick Clegg’s rather glib responses fail to scratch the surface of these considerations.
In terms of seat reductions, both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats went into the election with the aim of cutting the number of MPs – by 10% to 585 in the Tory case and to 500 in the case of the Lib Dems. The advantages of this, other than relatively minor cost savings, have not been well articulated. It certainly isn’t so that everyone can get a seat on those green benches.
Some people have tried to link greater powers for Wales in the Part 4 referendum with the cuts to Welsh seats, and suggested that Plaid Cymru shouldn’t be fighting against these cuts to Welsh constituencies. My response to that is that there is certainly a place for that debate and it is one that should be held, but that is not the argument being made by the UK government in London and that debate has not yet been held or given the real scrutiny that it should have.
In short, the reduction of seats comes from the introduction of a UK-wide principle and it perhaps says more for how the Con-Dem UK Government perceives Wales that it hasn’t even considered this issue. While London holds the purse strings and makes major international decisions such as going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we need a strong representation from Wales there to voice our issues and concerns.
Of course, while I’m sure that Labour are genuine in their concern for this loss of voice, they are nevertheless making many of these arguments from a position as much out of self-interest as anything else. It is Labour who will inevitably lose more seats than anyone else when this boundary changes take place – boundary changes that will ignore traditional geographical and historical considerations in place of getting the numbers right.
But it was this self-interest that saw Labour put up a bizarre straw man argument that the cuts in these seats couldn’t take place because of a clause in the 2006 Government of Wales Act which linked Westminster and Assembly seat boundaries.
This Bill will instead de-couple those boundaries – meaning that if the fixed term parliament bill goes through then we will be voting in 2015 for three different electoral areas (Assembly seat, Assembly regional list and Westminster) with three ballot papers in two different administrations and possibly three different voting systems.
However, this does open up the possibility of other debate surrounding possible changes to the Government of Wales Act, the most obvious being the ending of the restrictive candidacy rules that prevent candidates from standing for both constituency and regional list and allowing the Assembly itself rather than the Secretary of State the power to change or vary election dates.
There is no good reason why the Bill links the alternative vote referendum and the reduction in seats, and Labour have used this argument as a reason to go back on their manifesto pledge to support an AV referendum. The Lib Dems, of course, will support the Bill and in Wales hope that hosting the referendum at the same time as Assembly elections will give them a bounce, while the Conservatives seem relatively quiet on the issue, watching largely from the sidelines.
While economic issues and the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review will rightly dominate much of the discussion, the impact of this Bill upon Wales in 2011 and 2015 cannot be under-estimated.
Tags: AV, House of Commons, Parliament, STV, voting
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11 Comments
This piece underlines very clearly the Plaid argument that while Wales remains a part of the UK, it should benefit from the arrangement. Good to see that there may also be an opportunity in all of this, however.
A shrewd analysis which represents the best attempt I’ve seen by a Plaid politician in a long while to strategise constitutional impact at a Westminster level. Long overdue.
“Some people have tried to link greater powers for Wales in the Part 4 referendum with the cuts to Welsh seats,”
An extremely mistaken link, I feel. Greater powers for the Assembly does not reduce the burden on Welsh MPs, it reduces the burden on ALL MPs. It’s no argument for Wales taking a greater hit on reduction of seats.
Good piece from Jonathan on a very important issue: yesterday’s Commons proceedings take us further down the road to this Bill becoming law.
Jonathan says “There is no good reason why the Bill links the alternative vote referendum and the reduction in seats, and Labour have used this argument as a reason to go back on their manifesto pledge to support an AV referendum”. It’s not right to say Labour has gone back on its manifesto pledge. If there had been a bill for an AV referendum alone, Labour would have honoured its commitment. But Labour never promised to support an AV referendum bound up with boundary change gerrymandering.
I look forward to casting my alternative votes for other candidates. I will be able to vote Liberal Democrat to cast my vote of preference in the hope that the candidate might succeed, even though in previous years it was third place; then cast a second vote for the person who I believe, will on past records, look after the interests of the constituency. Naturally I am able to ignore certain politics by not casting a vote of preference.
It is important to many people that each vote cast is for a person, not an organisation who will determine the character of the politician. AV is just that, a vote of different levels of confidence in people.
Gerrymandering is a little hysterical a term to use in a democratic society, don’t you think?
Darn go dda gan Jonathan sy’n trafod yn addas, y problemau y mae’r mesur yn codi inni yng Nghymru. Y gwirionedd, wrth gwrs, yw tra wnaeth David Cameron ddod i Gymru wedi’i apwyntiad yn Brif Weinidog a thrafod y ‘respect agenda,’ dydy’r Llywodraeth ConDem ddim yn parchu Cymru o gwbl. Derbyniaf heb os, y ffaith y bydd cynnal yr etholiadau amrywiol hyn ar yr un diwrnod yn arbed arian, ond fel y mae Jonathan yn cwestiynnu, cwestiynaf innau faint o arian? Ydy’r arian a arbedir werth colli llais i Gymru, sy’n dawel ei hun beth bynnag? Mae Jonathan yn gwbl iawn i ddweud tra bod Llundain yn dal i wneud penderfyniadau pellgyrhaeddol ar bethau megis trethi, rhyfela, materion cartref a chyfiawnder ayb, mae’n rhaid i Gymru gael llais dechau yno. Wrth gwrs, os yw’r nifer o ASau yn lleihau, fydd disgwyl i’r nifer o ACau leihau hefyd, a does dim gwerth i’r ddadl nad oes angen llais cyn gryfed i Gymru yn San Steffan wrth i’n pwerau ni yn y Bae dyfu.
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A good piece by Jonathan which appropriately discusses the problems that the Bill causes for Wales. The reality however, is that while David Cameron came to Wales after his appointment as Prime Minister and talked about the ‘respect agenda,’ the ConDem government clearly isn’t respecting Wales. I accept of course, the fact that money would be saved by holding these various elections on the same day, but as Jonathan questions, I question how much? Is this money that would be saved worth Wales losing her already quiet voice in London? Jonathan is right to say that London still makes far-reaching decisions on things such as taxing, war, home affairs and justice etc, Wales must have a decent voice there. Of course, if the number of MPs falls, the number of AMs would likely fall too, and there is no value to the argument that Wales doesn’t need as strong a voice in Westminster as our own powers grow in the Bay.
I am actually willing to accept Gez’s defence regarding the boundary changes (as opposed to purely AV) not being a manifesto committment. Indeed too many bills are presented mischievously by Government’s and leave the opposition with a ‘Hobson’s choice’.
The wider debate needs to be had, but the Westminster parties refuse to do so in an open manner. The Hobson’s choice offered by the ConDems is that each seat should be a similar number of votes, equalising ‘value of vote’. But surely that logical conclusion of that debate is having a voting system that delivers that value of vote?
What is the point of using the principle of voter fairness when talking of boundary changes, but then totally dismiss that principle when it comes to voting reform? The Lib Dems of course must be mercilessly reminded of this, but the Tories have a case to answer.
Siren anti-PR Tory voices, including at the top tier of today’s Cabinet painted a dire ‘hell in a handcart’ scenario if we had a hung parliament. There is clearly a demand for the Tories to apologise for this, or at least admit that they only meant ‘hell in a handcart’ if it was a non-Tory one.
And I also think playing the ‘numbers’ game is dangerous with boundary changes. There are clear historical, social and geographical reasons for boundaries being what they are. I live right on the Torfaen/Monmouth border, but Monmouth goes into a fair whack of Cwmbran…one of the fastest growing places in Wales is split into two different seats.
The problem is that there will always be oddities and biases in any reform of the boundaries.
Looseload asks: “Gerrymandering is a little hysterical a term to use in a democratic society, don’t you think?” Well, no – it’s only in democratic societies that gerrymandering occurs. In non-democratic societies, regimes don’t need to try to distort the democratic process – because it doesn’t exist…
I think the major timing issue is less money and more if we can really expect the Welsh people to turn out three times to vote, voter apathy is already an issue do we want to add voter fatigue to that as well? As to why AV needs to be now… well that is a fine question isn’t it?
There are issues over the sizes of constituencies, there does need to be some move towards more equal sizes (population wise). How on earth can you say it’s okay for 45,000 people to elect one and 65,000 to elect another, simply not fair! I can’t connect with the arguments over areas being split, there are already plenty of split up areas with Wales having a number of so called “cross boundary” constituencies, Cardiff South and Penarth being a good example.
Actually Cardiff South and Penarth is not cross boundary. This is because the Boundary Commission does not use local authorities for calculating and defining seat boundaries but “Preserved Counties”. These are essentially the pre local government reorganisation counties with some modifications. The other boundaries used are local government wards, specifically those of community councils. As I understand it the new boundaries will only be circumscribed by the National boundary of Wales, Scotland and England, with a few exceptions for island seats in Scotland. Oh and once again Cornwall gets no recognition at all.
While I’d agree that as far as is practicable seats should be about the same size making an absolute fetish for equality will produce a system of shifting boundaries that will change after each election. Confusing for the public and not good in terms of identification with community.
I see less justification for reducing the size of the House of Commons, its a totemistic reduction to “share the pain” of the reductions. Of course Wales is over represented, that is partly because of the preserved counties and the rules have ratcheted up the number of seats…. let me put it this way currently Wales is entitled to a minimum number of seats, you divide the number by the population of Wales to get a quota. Then divide the population of the preserved county by that quota and they get one seat for each quota fulfilled and once for each 0.5 of quota, so you can see potentially the number of seats goes up by more than originally thought of quite easily. Hence Gwynedd gets more seats than it would otherwise be entitled to. To try and even this out some preserved counties are paired, such as Mid Glamorgan and Gwent. The result is some cross border seats, such as Merthyr and Rhymney.
Using registered electors rather than population causes another distortion that would have been better avoided.
Of course this could be solved relatively easily by relaxing the absolute equality of seats and far more importantly by creating an equality of vote. This is done by introducing STV and using natural units for the Constituencies, preferably in Wales by using local government boundaries. Hence at a stroke you would have stable boundaries and the only change would be adding or removing a seat. But that is far to radical for this government.