3.47 p.m.

I beg to move. That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the election of Members of Parliament by means of the system of the single transferable vote in any Constituency in which the demand has manifested itself by local action. I do not think that I have need to dilate at length on the nature of the proposal in my proposed Bill. The question of the alternative vote has come up from time to time in our political life and during the present century. In asking leave to introduce the Bill I would like to remind the House this matter has most respectable precedents, including numerous statements by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill).

The Bill would not, I wish to emphasise, attempt to alter our present electoral system, but provide that on occasions where local demand manifests itself—say, by means of a petition—the simple transferable vote system could be introduced into any single constituency, if need be for a single election only.

The Bill has an exact precedent in recent years: the Representation of the People (St. Albans) Bill, which was introduced by the noble Lord the Earl of Verulam when he sat in this House as the hon. Member for St. Albans. On 26th March, 1954, he introduced that Measure and described it as …a small and modest Bill which would permit a limited experiment". It is in that spirit that I am asking leave to introduce my Bill.

The noble Lord further said, in a somewhat prophetic fashion, that his Bill would protect the "independently-minded candidate". He spoke of the "middle-of-the-road candidate" and added that it would …influence the strongly partisan party feeling to adopt perhaps more moderate ways."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th March, 1954; Vol. 525, c. 1599–1602.] When the noble Lord introduced his Bill in 1954 he did so in an altruistic spirit, but 26th March of that year being a Friday, his Bill was counted out in the same manner as so many other admirable altruistic Measures leave the scene.

I, on the other hand, must confess an interest in my Bill. Owing to a controversy which is by now fairly well known—and about which I need only say, at this stage, that both sides are pursuing their course with equal obstinacy—there might well be two candidates of the Conservative persuasion in Carlisle at the next General Election. If that happens it may be that the undesirable position will occur that there will be wasted votes on either one side or the other.

I do not wish today to resurrect dead controversies, or to bring in any form of partisan feeling in what I say. It is a type of situation which can occur and which, indeed, has occurred on both sides of the House. I have felt it my duty to appeal to the House as a whole, as well as to hon. Members individually, in stating that, in a situation such as has arisen in Carlisle and elsewhere in the past 10 or 15 years, we are up against one of the problems of the party system in this country and the strength with which it has manifested itself throughout this century.

We accept in this House the discipline of the party system as a whole. It is proper that it should be there and we acknowledge that, at the centre, it is exercised with moderation and centuries of experience behind it. However, in recent years a fresh discipline has manifested itself in the party system; that of the local party committee. It is exercised somewhat easily, not always with the full sense of responsibility or with the many years of experience with which we are familiar in the central discipline. It is one from which, in my experience, the individual hon. Member has totally inadequate protection.

I have no time today to go into this in detail, although there is one assertion which should be recorded in the annals of this House; the assertion made by the chairman of the Carlisle Conservative Association in these words: Dr. Johnson has always been an outspoken M.P., and, within reason, there is no objection to this. But it is, of course, an Association's duty to decide in this context what is reasonable and what is not. I leave it to hon. Members to ponder on the implications of that statement.

I need only draw attention to the concern that is occasionally expressed in this House, and frequently outside, at the decline in the powers and prestige of Parliament. The Sunday newspapers this last weekend have been full of reviews of the book by Dr. Bernard Crick, in which this phenomenon is commented upon quite freely. I must put it on the record, this being perhaps the last speech that I shall have the occasion to make in this House, that my own main feeling during my nine years of membership has been one of utter helplessness as against the permanent bureaucracy.

The cure for this lies in the hands of hon. Members of the House. If, as happened in my case, one's career is cut off almost immediately one mentions this, there is little hope for the future solving of this problem. I am recommending my Bill to the House as a remedy for this state of affairs. I have no sponsor other than myself and I feel that, according to the traditions of the House, and the protection which it gives to the individual, this is appropriate, since the Bill is designed to protect the individual.

Its effect is that it allows an appeal in the constituency from a small committee to the voters as a whole in as much as they can, in certain instances, vote for alternative candidates of the same political persuasion without the fear that they are wasting their votes.

3.58 p.m.

The whole House will have listened with sympathy and interest to the remarks of the hon. Member for Carlisle (Dr. D. Johnson) in introducing his Motion. The difficulties in which he has got himself with his local Conservative association are not by themselves a case against his proposed Measure. Every case must be looked at on its merits. Hon. Members on both sides will remember the similar incident recently, when Mr. Nigel Nicolson was removed by his local Conservative association; and, certainly, this is a problem which, although not peculiar to hon. Members opposite, does present itself occasionally.

There are many arguments that might be used against the hon. Member's pro- posed Bill. I want to list them, but not to use them. The first is that the Bill might be thought of as a preparation for some party advantage for the party opposite. It may be that, like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), who proposed proportional representation as a way of winning the Liberals over to support the Conservative Party, this Bill might have been introduced for that reason, but I do not believe that it has, and, if looked at from the point of view of the proposals which have been made for amending the electoral law, it will be found that every party has, at one time or another, come out in favour of it.

The second argument against it might be that it is too near to election time to introduce it. I do not accept this, because, if it is a good proposal, then the House should concede it. The third is that private Members should not seek to amend the Constitution; and-whoever else might be able to use that argument, it is certainly not one which commends itself to me. The House must look at this proposal on its merits alone and it seems to me that the proposal falls down on its merits.

First of all, as the hon. Member will know very well, he offers no greater guarantee of proportionality in the representation of the different parties in this House of Commons. We all know that under the present system of voting it would be possible for one party to get more votes than another and yet only to have one Member, whereas the party with the minority of the popular votes would have 629 Members. Under the proposal of the hon. Gentleman, it would be possible for a party with only 26 per cent. of the popular vote to have 100 per cent. membership in the House.

I do not know whether the hon. Member wishes me to go into details. But if the votes for the major parties went 49–25 in half the constituencies and 25–49 in the rest, a minority party getting only 26 per cent. of the popular vote could win every seat and we could get just as big a nonsense from his proposal as from the present system.

No.

The hon. Gentleman will find that that is so.

The second point is that once this happened it would encourage a multiplicity of candidates. It is no use applying this to the hon. Gentleman's own case. There are many hon. Members opposite—and, it may be, on this side of the House, too—who would like to be in a position to test their strength against their colleagues locally, knowing that they could not lose and their party could not lose. If this were done it would involve extending to the electors a choice which is in a sense a false choice. Were the hon. Gentleman to get his Bill and be reelected and come back to the House, he would discover that the architecture was still the same. There are only two Division Lobbies in the House. For every proposal that comes before us there is either "Aye" or "No", or a quiet abstention.

If we extend to the electors the idea that there is a wide variety of choice which manifestly does not exist, I think that we should be encouraging a myth. What is the myth? It is, of course, that the parties do not really exist. Hon. Members on both sides of the House know of arguments from Press and pulpit attacking the party system. Many of us are disposed to believe—or perhaps not disposed, but bullied into accepting—that the party system is evil, or that it has dominantly evil characteristics. In practice, the party system is the only instrument by which the people of the country can have a say not only in whom they elect, but in the conduct of affairs when Parliament returns after the election.

We do not print party labels on the ballot papers which is preserving the myth that the parties do not exist. Mr. Speaker would not permit HANSARD to mention a party label, but in fact it is the party

which gives people a chance not only to vote for an hon. Member opposite, but to vote for his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister; not only for an hon. Member on this side of the House, but for the Leader of the Opposition. It is through the party system that they vote for a team and exercise a real influence over the conduct of affairs.

I think that the effect of the hon. Gentleman's proposed Bill, if it became law, would be to encourage the least unpopular man to be elected in a constituency. There would be a movement towards the centre which would weaken the basic alternative choice which is the real advantage under a party system. The fallacy that independent Members do not get into the House is denied as we look around and see my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot), the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, Southwest (Mr. Powell) and, indeed, the hon. Member for Carlisle himself. They do get into the House of Commons and the party system does not deny us the right of independent members.

There are also other disadvantages and although I sympathise with the intention of the hon. Gentleman in introducing his Motion I think that he should seek the remedy with his own party. He should try to introduce a little more democracy into his local Conservative association rather than seek the remedy which he is advocating.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 13 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of Public Business):—

The House divided: Ayes 20, Noes 137.