Electoral System

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:10 pm on 2 June 1998.

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Photo of Jack Straw Jack Straw The Secretary of State for the Home Department 4:10, 2 June 1998

We are talking about political institutions, not about trade unions—it would be quite off the point to do so.

The right hon. Member for Devizes seems to imply that the views that he has expressed are the unanimous views of the whole Conservative party; he knows that that is not true. I have with me the evidence that Conservative Action for Electoral Reform submitted to the Jenkins commission. It starts: Conservative Action for Electoral Reform welcomes the inquiry by the commission into an alternative system. It says: In the late 1970s, the Conservatives in Parliament had 41 Members of Parliament and 60 peers who supported change. It says that even the campaign guide of 1991—which, it correctly says, is the Conservative candidate's definitive authority from which the line is taken during a general election—stated: Ever since its invention in the 19th century, PR has had its advocates and opponents. In the Conservative party, the latter have always predominated, though the case for PR had been put with vigour by the group, Conservative Action for Electoral Reform, founded in 1974. If the Conservative party now denies that there is unanimity in the party on the issue, and if it accepts that there should be a debate in the Conservative party on the subject, why the devil should there not be a debate across the country also?