Political Parties

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:39 pm on 5 May 2004.

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Photo of Baroness Gould of Potternewton Baroness Gould of Potternewton Deputy Chairman of Committees, Deputy Speaker (Lords) 6:39, 5 May 2004

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Chandos for initiating the debate. It provides the opportunity to discuss where political parties fit in society today, on which I shall concentrate. As my noble friend said, political parties are essential institutions in our democracy, which provide the crucial link between voter preference and the forming of government at all levels; that is, local, national and European.

I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shutt. We should be building our political parties and not falling for the slogan that we hear too often; namely, that the party is over. There is no doubt that membership of political parties is falling. Only 3.5 per cent of British voters are members of any political party. We used to talk about "mass parties". That has always been a myth. There has never been any such thing as a mass party. There has always been only a minority of the electorate who has joined political parties.

I am not so worried about membership, although, as an ex-party apparatchik, of course I want membership to increase. But I am much more concerned about the disenchantment of the electorate and examining why that so; for example, whether it is because of disinterest, complacency or detachment from politics generally. Yesterday, the Electoral Commission published a new report, entitled, Do you do politics?. It concludes that the vast majority of people see politics as something that someone else does. We need to get over that phenomenon in order to build our political parties.

As I said, members are still needed. We are still considered by the majority of people as a group of very strange people who are members of political parties, go to party meetings, attend conferences, work with the local or national party machine and spend time knocking on doors. But our democracy owes a great debt to these grass-root activists. Without them, politics and decision making would be dependent on the temporary whims of populism. Without parties, voters would be confronted with a bewildering array of independents. Parties add meaning and clarity, through manifestos and campaign messages. We hope that that enables voters to make rational choices when they put their crosses on the ballot papers.

If there is a democratic malaise, I think that the media, to which the noble Lord, Lord Dean of Harptree, referred, has a lot to answer for. I shall give just one example: it is absolutely appalling that there is a discussion of a candidate being chosen for public office by a pop-idol style political programme. That makes a farce of our political system. Politics is about people working together through political parties to influence the communities in which they live, and not passively selecting a media-manufactured false idol.

Political parties are the gatekeepers to political office. They provide the mechanisms for public representatives to receive public endorsement and work within a laid-down set of rules, which is very important. Parties today are more than just election machines that mobilise electoral support. They are recruitment agencies for public representatives, the training ground for local councillors and MPs and, ultimately, for our party leaders and Prime Minister, which we sometimes forget.

Shortly, we shall discuss the report of the Electoral Commission, entitled, Gender and Political Participation, and the crucial role that political parties play in promoting more women as public representatives. It is a clear illustration of why we need political parties.

As I said before, it is disturbing how little voters know about political parties. There seems to exist deep-seated misconceptions, ignorance about politics generally and—I believe absolutely—real distrust. That level of distrust has grown over the years and should not be taken with any complacency.

Research by Eurobarometer identified that only 15 per cent of the population trusted political parties. In a recent survey, the Institute for Citizenship showed that 64 per cent of those surveyed knew hardly anything about how Parliament or their local councils work. It is no wonder that people are not really interested. It is not wholly surprising when, until recently, there has been two decades without citizenship being taught adequately in schools.

The real question for many people is: why have any interest or participate in a political party when it appears that decision making in many areas has moved away from government to non-elected bodies, such as quangos, to regulators or to international institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank? We no longer live in a neat environment within known boundaries.

Many key decisions affecting people's lives are now beyond the reach of domestic politics. As globalisation and technological change are mainly developing outside the conventional political framework, people are finding alternative avenues of engagement and new ways of feeling connected. New technology is the biggest driver of political change. The Internet allows different forms of interaction based on common interest and lifestyles. We are fast becoming a society of individuals who interact with each other through a nexus of networks. Influence is now increasingly shared among a variety of formal and informal networks, pressure groups and charitable organisations.

It is a myth that the British people are apathetic, which always relates to whether they vote. But British people are not apathetic. All the evidence belies the idea that the public have somehow become disengaged from civil life. Rather, the British are a society of joiners. The problem is that their interest in political issues is not translated into interest in political parties.

Other noble Lords have referred to the single-interest groups. There are now more than 180,000 registered charities in the UK, of which many have very large memberships and whose influence is felt and recognised by the Government. Organisations have been brought into policy making and implementation at the highest levels of government. That is challenging the role of parties as the main agents of political participation.

There is a plethora of area-based initiatives and schemes; for example, people involved in the New Deal and Sure Start programmes and local civil forums. Local people are providing civic leadership and accountability with a sense of ownership of the outcome and that their contribution has made a difference. But parties are distinguished from those alliances by their desire not just to influence those in government but to become—or become part of—government themselves.

Nevertheless, political parties have to be involved in the changes in society and must look at the way in which they operate. If parties are to impress voters and to sustain their reputation as agents of change, there is a clear need to cultivate new themes and update traditional thinking. That may mean a new style of political party that turns outwards to local campaigns and concerns, and which needs to be seen to be very engaged in the local community. I agree that organisations need to be properly funded and professionally run.

There is an urgent need to rebuild the relevance of politics as a concept and as an activity worth taking part in. We should not forget that the lesson of the 20th century has been the birth and growth of political parties in eastern Europe, South Africa and the old Soviet Union, providing them, for the first time, with democratic and representative governance.

Political parties are central to democracy. In the main, they are the only way that public opinion can be effectively articulated and governments elected. As long as there is representative governance, there will be political parties that are made up of people with joint values coming together to bring about social change. That is the essence of our political democracy.