It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, with his passion and analysis, which was evident even through the screen.
I speak to support Clause 11 not standing part of the Bill. In doing so, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and an adviser to a number of metro mayors and mayors, as set out in my entry in the register of interests.
In support of my view that the clause should not stand part, I shall speak about three issues. First, this proposed change cannot be regarded as a manifesto commitment; secondly, there is the lack of any meaningful consultation on the change; and thirdly, a proportional voting system is right for these particular posts, regardless of whether you support proportional representation in general or for local elections. I apologise in advance that this will be a longer Committee speech than is perhaps normal. However, the issues at stake here are so fundamental to the way we do business in a properly functioning democracy that they need to be set out at length.
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I shall start with the question of the manifesto commitment. The Government have asserted that this proposed change was a commitment in the 2019 general election manifesto. Having explored the issue in some depth, I am very clear that that is definitively not the case. To prove this point, I need to take the House for a guided tour of Conservative election manifestos over the last decade—I can hear the enthusiasm in the Committee.
The 2015 Conservative election manifesto, entitled Strong Leadership. A Clear Economic Plan. A Brighter, More Secure Future—not one of the snappier manifesto titles—said on this issue:
“We will respect the will of the British people, as expressed in the 2011 referendum, and keep First Past the Post for elections to the House of Commons.”
The intent is clear: to retain first past the post for general elections. There is no reference to local elections and certainly no reference to changing the supplementary voting system for mayors or police and crime commissioners.
We move on to the 2017 manifesto, entitled Forward, Together: Our Plan for a Stronger Britain and a Prosperous Future, which states:
“We will retain the first past the post system of voting for parliamentary elections and extend this system to police and crime commissioner and mayoral elections.”
The intent here is equally clear: both to retain first past the post for parliamentary elections and to extend it to mayors and police and crime commissioners. However, no action was taken in the period between that election and 2019; I suspect Brexit had something to do with that.
Had that been what was in the 2019 Conservative election manifesto, it would have settled the argument on manifesto commitments, but it was not. The 2019 manifesto, entitled Get Brexit Done: Unleash Britain’s Potential—they are getting snappier—said:
“We will continue to support the First Past the Post system of voting, as it allows voters to kick out politicians who don’t deliver, both locally and nationally.”
The key word here is “continue”. The commitment is to continue to support first past the post where it is currently used for national and local elections. There is absolutely no reference, as there was in the 2017 manifesto, to extending first past the post to mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections. Indeed, the final point in the sentence, about being able to kick out politicians who do not deliver, clearly does not apply to elections of mayors and police and crime
commissioners under the supplementary vote, as they are perfectly capable of being kicked out and indeed have been.
I cannot tell the Committee why that was left out of the 2019 manifesto, but in a sense it does not matter. There was clearly no manifesto commitment to change the voting system for mayors and PCCs. The Minister might argue, “Let’s take the best of three from the manifestos”, but that clearly will not do. Political parties can and do change their policy positions substantially between elections so we have to take the most recent manifesto as our reference point. In this instance, the position could not be clearer. It would really help if the Minister acknowledged this point so that we can move on. Given the importance attached to commitments in manifestos, it is also important that Ministers do not assert that they are there when they are not.
Now I will move on to the question of consultation. It is instructive to see the care and attention that went into establishing the London mayor and Assembly and the electoral system to be used in electing them. In this, I am indebted to conversations with the former Minister, Nick Raynsford, who led on this for the Government at the time, and to the research undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, who has kindly shared it with me. In the Green Paper published in July 1997, entitled New Leadership for London, the Government set out different possible electoral systems for the mayor and the Assembly. In the case of the mayor, the choices were first past the post, second ballot and alternative vote. For the Assembly, a range of options was put forward, including first past the post.
An extensive consultation process with stakeholders and voters was undertaken and the subsequent White Paper in March 1998 reported on the results of that consultation. For the mayor, it proposed the supplementary vote system, and for the assembly, the additional member system. The White Paper argued that the system used to elect the assembly should facilitate a more inclusive and less confrontational style of politics, and the system for the mayor should help to ensure a clear winner with strong support. That is a crucial point. The White Paper went on to argue that electing the mayor and the assembly should be done in ways that are compatible with each other.
The White Paper noted that the majority of the responses to the consultation were against the use of the first past the post system to elect the mayor. Instead, there was strong support for a system which could give a winning candidate a clear majority. This was much more likely to be delivered by the supplementary vote system, which I will come on to, than the first past the post system where, in a large field of candidates, it is perfectly possible for the winner to have one-third or less of the votes.
I have gone through this in some detail, because it formed the template for all the subsequent elections for mayors and police and crime commissioners, who were all elected under the supplementary vote system. We now have 15 elected local authority mayors, nine elected metro mayors and 40 directly elected police and crime commissioners, as well as the Mayor of London. Through either metro mayors or police and
crime commissioners, the whole country is now served by postholders who were elected by the supplementary vote system. That amounts to over 43 million voters. In the 36 referenda on establishing mayors and the nine consultations on establishing metro mayors, the clear expectation and understanding was that the elections would be under the supplementary vote system. If London is included, some 41.5% of the population is now covered by a metro mayor. Similarly, with the police and crime commissioners, established under Theresa May, the supplementary vote system was used. The relevant legislation in 2011 and 2016 incorporated the supplementary vote system without controversy, so far as I can tell. There was no suggestion that it would be otherwise.
Contrast that very extensive process of consultation and engagement with what has occurred with the current proposals. When the Bill was introduced in the other place on 5 July last year, it made no reference to changing the voting system for mayors and commissioners. As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said, the Minister announced that it would form part of the Bill only in September, when the Bill was already in Committee. Given this, it is not surprising that the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee expressed strong concern about the late addition. It said that
“the manner in which this change was introduced after the Bill had been debated by the House at Second Reading was unsatisfactory and disrespectful towards the House of Commons.”
I would argue that it is also deeply disrespectful to the 43 million electors who will have their voting system changed without any meaningful notice or consultation. Put simply, this is not good enough. Such sweeping constitutional changes should not be made in this cavalier way.
The Government have argued that the result of the 2011 referendum on moving to AV for general elections makes the case that the public favours change. That was a different voting system for different elections. The use of the supplementary vote system for mayors and police and crime commissioners has been put forward by successive Labour and Conservative Governments when the clear policy of both parties was to support first past the post for general elections.
I happen to favour the wider use of PR as a fairer system, but I recognise that this is not a majority view. However, the arguments made against proportional representation—that it leads to coalition government and a decoupling of elected representatives from their electorate—simply do not apply to the elections of mayors and commissioners by the supplementary vote system. If the Government want to argue that the public support first past the post for these elections, they should test the point through a proper consultation process.
This brings me to my third and final argument. The supplementary vote system, while not perfect—as no system is—is a much better way of electing to these posts than first past the post. I say that because the candidate with the largest number of votes, following the elimination of candidates other than the first two, is clearly the winner. Whatever technical arguments are made about different voting systems, this brings a
crucial benefit: a successful candidate is more likely to win on a majority of the votes cast on either first or second preferences. This is a powerful incentive for candidates aspiring to be elected to look beyond their immediate supporters to the wider electorate. It is a unifying process that produces, as was intended, mayors with a strong mandate.
This is essential to produce visible and effective leaders who can effectively represent the different and competing interests of their electorate. We invest directly elected mayors with substantial individual powers over our local public services. They make decisions over significant resources, balancing competing priorities and claims. As has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, we elect individuals with these powers. It is therefore crucial that they have the support of as many electors as possible. There are real dangers in electing such powerful and important figures routinely on the basis of minority support. That is why, whatever voting system is used for national elections, the supplementary vote system makes sense for mayors. Indeed, it is worth noting that the brave mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, was elected on the basis of the supplementary vote system, as are all the mayors of the larger cities in Ukraine.
The Government have argued that the supplementary vote system is confusing and overcomplicated, but the evidence supporting this is far from compelling. We have now had five mayoral elections in London; as has been said, the system is tried and tested. In its post- poll report on the May 2021 elections, the Electoral Commission found that nine in 10 voters said that the system was easy to fill in on the ballot paper. For those who found it difficult, a range of reasons was given, of which the different electoral system was only one.
The number of rejected papers in May 2021 was indeed higher for those elections than for those using first past the post—0.8% for local government elections, 2.7% for PCC elections and 4.3% for the mayor. However, the number of rejected papers for the Mayor of London election was notably higher than the previous election; the figure in May 2016 was half this at 1.9%. The Electoral Commission says that the most significant difference for the May 2021 mayoral election was the new ballot paper design. Combine that with the large number of candidates—there were 20—and the need to split them over two papers and you can see where the problems emerged. These are perfectly solvable problems in the supplementary vote system. It does not require a change of voting system. It could be addressed simply by changing the design. As with London, I am sure that other parts of the country could follow suit.