A closer look at the draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Since I blogged earlier about the draft House of Lord Reform Bill I've decided to look further into it.

First of all is what was said in the programme for government:

"We will establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation. The committee will come forward with a draft motion by December 2010. It is likely that this will advocate single long terms of office. It is also likely there will be a grandfathering system for current Peers."

The committee met 7 times from June to December, reached agreement on a large number of issues, but differences in opinion remain on the size of the elected element and the type of electoral system.

So it is those two differences which may seem minor but are quite major as far as laying out primary legislation goes. The draft Bill is laying out that 80% of the second chamber be elected (this is in line with Conservative thinking) but leaves open the scrutiny of an 100% elected chamber in line with the coalition agreement (and indeed the Liberal Democrat manifesto). The system used for elected that system is laid out as Single Transferable Vote (in line with Lib Dem manifesto) but allows for scrutiny of other electoral systems such as a open list system (which the Conservatives and indeed Labour may well prefer).

The electoral system dilemma

 Looking at the electoral system first. STV electing multiple members in a constituency allows the people to choose on their preferences by their own preferences. Bearing in mind that some of the people who prefer the open list system said that they thought AV was a complex system, clearly don't understand how much more complex the open list is.

AV has one quota, 50% of the valid votes in whichever round you are in. There are two quotas in the open list. The first is the quota for acquiring a seat in that constituency. This will determine how many quotas and therefore seats are gained by each party.

The second is the quota within the list, this is first ranked by the party, but then there is a quota for the number of first preferences within that list. Any candidate who personally gains that number of preferences will be elected. If the number of seats are not filled then the empty seats will be filled by order on the list.

Let's say that this party secures 5,000 votes, the quota is 1,000 vote so therefore they secure 5 seats. Say the requirement for being elected off the list is 25% of a quota or else 25 votes.

• Candidate #1 3,500
• Candidate #2 65
• Candidate #3 75
• Candidate #4 450
• Candidate #5 175
• Candidate #6 200
• Candidate #7 350
• Candidate #8 35

Candidates 1,4 and 7 are elected from the list. Candidates 6 and 5 have the next highest first preferences but because they FAILED to  reach the quota it is back to the ordering of the list. Therefore candidates 2 and 3 fill up the remaining seats.

Therefore if the open list system is adopted at the behest of the people who told you AV would let losers into Westminster via a too complex system you will see just what hypocrites they are. STV is the system that like AV leaves the real, indeed only power, in the hands of the voters. Even bigger losers could get elected under an open list system, someone might actually hypothetically get no votes on the open list yet because of their placing by the party still get elected.

The size of the elected element

The number is set at 300 members (plus instead of 26 just 12 ex officio Lords Spiritual). However, whether that 300 is fully elected of just 240 of them are is an important issue. If the latter there are 20 seats that are up for appointment by the Prime Minister at the time of each election (bear in mind both the election to the 'Lords' and the Commons will be occuring at the same time). It may not sound like much until you think if one party wins each of the three elections that make up the terms. They would have, persumably a majority of the elected 2nd chamber and then have the appointments as well. It could well give the push over the 50% majority of seats in the second chamber, those extra 60 seats, that would be harder to achieve under a purely proportional system without any remaining appointments.

It is clear therefore that both the systems preferred by the Conservatives are actually the parties trying once again to grasp and retain as much power as they think they can get away with. Appearing to be progressive at one hand but giving themselves just enough retention of control to get who they want into the 2nd chamber.

Complementing the House of Commons

There is a section in the draft bill that talk about the second chamber complimenting the House of Commons, still deemed to be the primary chamber that the second chamber.

It says:

• A long term for members of three normal Parliaments;
• A single non-renewable term;
• An appointed element (in an 80% elected House of Lords)
• A different voting system for elections to the reformed House of Lords from that used for elections to the House of Commons.

Whoa!! I've just spotted something. That final phrase in a bill that comes to life after the AV referendum for the House of Commons. Remember the No 2 AV team tried to persuade some people, like the Unionist Parties here or some PR supporters that if they vote no to AV they are saying yes to PR. This Bill would seem to rule out the same sort of PR at any point in the future for the two houses.

This means that if we get STV for the second chamber you can wave that goodbye for the Commons. That is not what the Lib Dems, Alliance, SDLP, Sinn Féin or certain Unionist parties stood for in the Westminster elections. Nor is it why those parties supported the AV referendum. Failed though it may have been they have all said they will carry on the fight for reform.

More thoughts to come perhaps

There are 174 pages of the proposed Bill, but just are just some of my initial thoughts....for now.

Scottish Televsion Underdog Supporter #STVFail

At the moment all the ITV regions bar those in Scotland are watching the Nick Clegg interview with Mary Nightingale. So what you say?

Well we have had the Gordon Brown interview with Piers Morgan and the David Cameron one with Trevor McDonald. The latter is the issue, there is one Conservative MP in Scotland, their leader in Scotland Annabel Goldie has said that Cameron can win the Westminster election without taking seats in Scotland. Oppose that to Nick Clegg who has 12 of his MPs in Scotland is determined that his party will take more. Of all the people that the people of Scotland need to know about is the one who says that it is the people who will be kingmakers in the event of a hung government, but we will do it on what we believe.

What we believe is likely to be front and foremost in this interview, yet that is not going to be shown now on Sunday night just after Dancing on Ice and the news like Brown and Cameron have had.

STV must justify why they are supporting the smallest Westminster group of the Scottish parties in this way while ignoring the second largest.

Brown's AV Proposals Hand Edinburgh South to Lib Dems - Curtice

Last night Eric Joyce asked on Twitter, "AV [Alternative Vote] Voting. Any thoughts?" so I had a little debate with him about how it was change not reform etc. How it still gave too much power to the parties and not enough to the people. he went strangely silent on me when I asked. "Why now? It was discussed pre-1997 by the Blair-Ashdown negotiations. Why wait 13 years?".

I take it Eric's silence adds strength to the argument that Gordon Brown is proposing this now as a political expedient not out of any real commitment. Indeed in this morning's Scotsman John Curtice points out that the Lib Dems are everyone's second favourite, so AV would help the Lib Dems, but only he says in seats where are already a strong second like in Edinburgh South. Indeed he thinks AV would deliver us a dozen or so extra seats.

Of course the other issue is who is going to be second favourites elsewhere. Curtice says:

"The SNP is unlikely to gain much either. The Nationalists cannot be sure of winning more second preference votes from Conservatives and Liberal Democrats than Labour.

"But who do Liberal Democrat and SNP voters prefer more – Conservative or Labour? The answer is clear – Labour. In the ICM poll, 45 per cent of Liberal Democrat supporters said Labour was their second choice, only 28 per cent the Conservatives. Only a handful of SNP supporters in the 2007 local elections gave any support to a Tory candidate.

"So where Labour lie a close second to the Conservatives, the new system could enable them to capture the seat. But the Conservatives are unlikely to gain where they are close to Labour – while of the two parties they are also more likely to be leapfrogged by a local Liberal Democrat."

It is a fault with a majority system such as AV which is not proportional to the voting intentions of the electorate but merely a reallocation of the votes to the next best option.

Andrew Burns the Labour leader on Edinburgh City Council self deprecates with his blog title Really Bad Blog, but this morning I want to hold him up as a Labour elected representative who speaks sense.

He says seeing as the use of Alternative Vote (AV) for Westminster Elections have now been tabled as an amendment to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, he says it is:

"Pretty straightforward to adjust it from a majoritarian to a proportional system ... "

He then outlines almost the wording (bar the use of 2 member constituencies and a few other pieces) that I think a Lib Dem MP should be tabling replacing AV with a Single Transferable Vote System(STV).

STV also gives more power to the people, last night Eric Joyce was bemoaning the fact that 8 MSPs had some say over the voters of Falkirk that he represents. He was also saying that he liked to let the people have their personal say over his re-election. Thing is the bulk of that say is down to the local party, there only is one Labour candidate that the people of Falkirk have to vote for under the AV proposals.

Say if under STV Falkirk and say Livingston and Linlithgow were returning 3 MPs there may well be 2 or 3 Labour candidates for the people to choice from. It would combine the aspect of the people deciding which Labour candidate was their preferred option, plus also decide between the various candidates. This may not be to Eric's liking for his own personal reasons* but suits people like Iain Dale who advocate open primaries. It gives a certain amount of power to the people. It makes peoples votes fairer and is proportional rather than a shifting of the votes.

My current choice of words to explain Brown's position is a misquote of Neil Armstrong. AV is one small step which suits Labour best, where is the giant leap for fairness to the electorate?

In conclusion Curtice sums up Brown's long road to his Damascus moment to change the voting system like this:

"Under current circumstances at least, the attractions of the Alternative Vote for Labour are clear. Its adoption would make it even more difficult for the Conservatives to win a majority, only make it a little easier for the Liberal Democrats to secure extra seats, while Labour's chances of winning a majority might even be enhanced.

"Not so much "new" politics as an old-fashioned political fix."

Brown is fiddling but at least Andrew Burns is man enough to spot the score.

PS On a point of order made by Caron on twitter of course we don't need AV to get Fred Mackintosh as the MP for Edinburgh South. He is more than capable of overhauling that 405 vote margin over Nigel Griffiths Candidate X under first past the post.

Read also: Alistair Carmichael MP on why you should beware of dying Governments bearing gifts. Plus Mark Thompson estute as ever on whether AV is even worth campaigning for.

*Most expensive MP in the House of Commons.

Not a Catastophe for Democracy

Tom Harris MP this morning describes proportional representation for local government as an 'electoral and democratic catastrophe' in the same post as he praises Alex Salmond for showing that minority administrations can work. Now surely by taking his logic Labour should be in a minority administration at Westminster because democratically they won a minority of the votes cast in 2005.

It's often the case of people defending First Past the Post in a multi-party system that they want to ignore the fact that the majority of people don't vote them even if they do manage to win the largest number of seats. Now that is hardly democratic, what about the votes that all the people cast for the third, fourth or later party. In first past the post they sometimes have the difficult decision if they want change to not vote for their principles but for the party most likely to beat the party they don't want to be their representative. In Tom's case should the electorate of Glasgow South not want Labour to be their government at the next general election the 53% who didn't vote for him last time (yes he'd want you to forget that last time he slipped to minority support in his constituency) would all be voting for the best placed party to turf him out, that just happened to be the Lib Dems on 2005 standings.

As for having three, four or more represent you at local level Tom is forgetting the whole. Those representatives are there to reflect the views of their electorate. At whatever level a proportionately elected body governs it will truly be more reflective of the views and opinions of those who elect it than FPTP can be in anything other than a two party system. As for making it Single Transferable it acknowledges the fact that we can't always have everything that we want but we will prefer somethings over others therefore ranking our preferred options to give us the best fit for what we want. I don't think Tom would appreciate going into a restaurant and the dish he ordered not being available because the largest number of the people in the restaurant wanted something else, even he he and a majority of the other dinners preferred something else off the menu and actually detested the one option that the chef was cooking for up to the next 5 years.

The only electoral catastrophe that Labour faced over STV was largely losing the grip over their wholly undemocratic socialist fifedoms, and having to actually find council candidates that could engage with the electorate rather than being voted in purely because of the red rossette. As for democracy it triumphed especially if he is acknowledging that minority administrations are workable and good for the Labour party.