Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill (Money) (No. 3)

In fact, the hon. Gentleman exemplifies the unpredictability of the system that is being proposed here tonight. The principal alternative to proportional representation is, of course, first past the post, whose great merit is that, much more often than not, it delivers a Parliament in which one party has an overall majority. That creates at least the possibility—although not the certainty, as we have seen in the past 13 years—of firm and effective government. It preserves the constituency link; it gives Members of Parliament an individual mandate; the formation of a Government normally takes place immediately after the election; and it makes it more difficult for extremist parties to gain power. Now, it does not, of course, comply with the abstract notion of fairness that I have previously described. Indeed, it can be very unfair. At the last general election, for example, although the Conservative party obtained more votes than Labour in England, we got 92 fewer seats in England. That extreme unfairness would be remedied to some extent by the proposals in new clause 99, which I welcome, but those proposals would not extinguish that unfairness completely. I believe, however, that that is the price that has to be paid in order to obtain the advantages of first past the post. The Government's proposal seeks to find a compromise between these two models and, like most such proposals, it falls between two stools. It delivers neither fairness nor the advantages of first past the post. It gives wholly disproportionate power and influence to those whose first preference is for the least popular and least representative option before them. I do not believe that we should introduce a system that gives disproportionate influence and power to people who have those views. They are perfectly entitled to have those views, and they are perfectly entitled to vote for parties that represent those views, but I do not see any reason why we should give them disproportionate influence and power by giving them the opportunity to vote again and again and to have, perhaps, the decisive influence in the decision as to which candidate should represent their constituency. The Government option gives us the worst of all worlds, therefore.