Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

That is what is done in London at the moment, and in mayoral elections in towns and cities the length and breadth of the country. That system is less satisfactory than the first-past-the-post system. However, it is a lot more satisfactory than the full alternative vote system, which is what is proposed in the Bill at present, because under that system the person who gets the third or fourth highest number of first preferences—or, in some scenarios, even the fifth highest—might end up being elected, because he has got the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth preferences of other candidates. That leads to a very undesirable system, in which not even the person who came first or second past the post is elected, but instead somebody who came much further down the running order, all on the basis of the lowest common denominator, which is the wrong way to choose representatives to this House.