Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

I thank my noble friend very much for his comments and for giving me the opportunity to offer a few words from the Government—I do not know if clarity is the word—on this very interesting subject. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for welcoming me to my first House of Lords debate on electoral systems. I have what may be a guilty secret to share: I have been rather enjoying the debate. It could be a mistake to admit that. As I am sure the Committee would expect me to say, every voting system has advantages and disadvantages. The Government acknowledge that there are arguments both for and against the various proportional voting systems, and we have introduced new voting systems for the devolved Administrations as well as for the mayoral elections in local authorities. As we know, mayors in local authorities are elected by the supplementary vote system. We have also proposed in Part 3 of the Bill that the supplementary vote system be used for electing an elected executive. More widely, the elections conducted in the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Greater London Assembly use the additional member system, and for the European Parliament the list system is used. In each of those cases there was a good reason to adopt the voting system that is now in place. Noble Lords seek today to change the system for electing mayors across England from the supplementary vote system to the single transferable vote system. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, also wishes the directly elected executive to be returned via the additional member system. He has set out why he considers those systems are advantageous. However, the Government do not believe that now is the time to make changes to any of the electoral systems in England. The noble Baronesses’ amendments were described as both ambitious and modest. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, set out why they wish to see the single transferable vote used for elections to principal and parish councils. However, that would mean that the first past the post system would no longer be used. One of the advantages of the first past the post system is that it ensures a direct relationship between those who are elected and the electorate within a specific geographical area. This system has historically been used to elect councillors to all local authorities. By tying members to a geographical area, a ward or a division which is constructed to reflect the identities and interests of communities, first past the post ensures that citizens know who represents them and, very importantly, representatives know whom they are representing. We believe that that is a significant advantage of the current system. The Government are, however, carrying out a review of the new voting systems used in the UK for the devolved Administrations, the European Parliament and the London mayoral and assembly elections. I hope and believe that this review will pick up the issues of confusion, transfers and spoilt papers to which the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, pointed. We are of the view that it would be inappropriate to pre-empt the findings of this review by encouraging the introduction of changes to the voting systems in the Bill. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister stated in another place: "““We will fulfil our manifesto commitment to publish our review of the experience of the various voting systems introduced in 1998””.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/7/07; col. 818.]" The review should be completed and published by the end of the year. Given my remarks, I hope that noble Lords will consider not pressing their amendments.