NUMBER OF MEPs, ELECTORAL REGIONS AND ELECTORAL SYSTEM

Part of Orders of the Day — European Parliamentary Elections Bill – in the House of Commons at 8:30 pm on 26 February 1998.

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Photo of James Clappison James Clappison Shadow Spokesperson (Home Affairs) 8:30, 26 February 1998

I beg to move amendment No. 14, in page 3, line 43, at end add— '3E.—(1) The Secretary of State shall by regulations prescribe the form of the ballot paper to be used at the poll for the election of representatives to the European Parliament.(2) Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, the ballot paper shall include, separately from the list of candidates, a brief explanatory statement describing the method of election and the procedure to be followed by each elector in casting his vote or votes.'. I do not think that I should be courting too much controversy if I said that the simplicity which has been alleged on behalf of the new electoral system for the European elections is not invincibly self-evident to everyone. If the Committee has at times struggled with divisors, proportionality and so on, the electors will have even more of a struggle when confronted with the system.

We owe it to the electors to explain to them what is happening. We should not just present to them the choices that they are offered, but explain how the system works and what will happen after they have cast their votes. That is a fairly simple proposition which ought to be adhered to in a democracy.

We hope that the Government will welcome the amendment. It requires the ballot paper to include, separately from the list of candidates, a brief explanatory statement describing the method of election and the procedure to he followed by each elector in casting his vote or votes. That would be helpful to electors.

There are grounds for suspecting that the Government themselves feel that the system needs more explanation. There has been talk of expensive advertising campaigns. Apparently, there is an internal debate in the Government about how best to explain the system to the public. The amendment provides one way of doing just that. Perhaps the Government should think carefully about providing reading rooms or something similar where electors could go to study the new system and see how to go about casting their vote.

The amendment is intended to be constructive. I shall be interested to hear the Minister's comments on how the Government intend to explain the new system to the electorate and whether the names of the candidates will appear separately on the ballot as the amendment suggests.