Orders of the Day — European Parliamentary Elections Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 8:30 pm on 10 November 1998.

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Photo of Dr John Marek Dr John Marek Labour, Wrexham 8:30, 10 November 1998

I shall not be sidetracked. Clearly there are issues central to Government policy where the Government will have to say that if we want them to govern, we have to support them. But my contention is that this is not an issue where the Government have to pronounce what they want and how they intend to achieve it and then use the Whips to dragoon their side through the Lobbies. This would have been an excellent example of where we could have had options A, B and C and a free vote of the House. I do not see what difference that would have made to the Government. We could have had the Belgian system, the House of Lords' system and the Home Secretary's closed-list system, and we would have had a much fuller House. The House would have been packed if we had had three options. That was done in the previous Parliament and it could have been done in this Parliament. It would make the House a better place if we empowered Members on both sides to use their judgment rather than be dragooned through the Lobbies.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary put forward a few arguments. He said that the authority of the House must prevail over the other place, then 10 minutes later he said that the Government consider that the closed-list system is right. He cannot have it both ways. It is perfectly right to argue the case as a member of the Government. I would have been happier if he had done so, having at least obtained the vote within the parliamentary Labour party. That is what happens in countries such as Australia and New Zealand. In most Commonwealth countries such matters go to a particular caucus. I do not know what happens in the Conservative party, but they do not go to any caucus in this party. However, my right hon. Friend cannot claim in aid the authority of the House and his authority as a member of the Government.

My right hon. Friend talked about the closed-list system of one. I thought that I was elected by an open-list system of one. It could have been ordered in any particular way. It was a list of one and it was completely open. Is my right hon. Friend trying to pull the wool over our eyes? Have I been labouring under a delusion? I have always thought that it was an open list; if people did not want to vote for me, they did not have to. If I am wrong in that logic, perhaps my right hon. Friend or the Under-Secretary will intervene and put me right. At the moment, I do not think that they intend to do that.

The last bit of obfuscation that we had from my right hon. Friend was that open-list systems are complicated and the British people are too stupid to understand them and do not like them. We hear that from all those who have an unsound case and want to pull the wool over people's eyes. It is not true. There are systems whereby one can vote for a particular party on the top row, and then have the opportunity to order candidates if one so wishes.

I think that I could have lived with the closed-list system if my own party's procedures in selecting candidates had been open, above board and honest, but clearly they have failed to be so. For example, I took part in a vote, with many of my fellow members of the north Wales Labour party, for those whom we thought should be on the list for the Welsh constituency of five members. We voted for our sitting candidate, Mr. Wilson, by, I think, about 98 per cent., yet, at the last stage, after the matter went to Millbank tower, where heaven knows what happens, a candidate from across the border in England appears on our list in Wales in third position—[Interruption.] That is not a criticism; he could have been from Ethiopia. However, he came from outside the area; we in Wales had no knowledge that he was interested in being on the list in Wales; and he was not considered as one of those in contention for a place on the list by the Labour party members in north Wales. Yet there he is in third position and the candidate for whom 98 per cent. of Labour members in north Wales voted is in fourth position—an unlikely winning position for the Labour party in the elections.

That cannot be right. It is not open. There is no doubt about that. It is not democratic because 98 per cent. of Labour party members voted for somebody else. They did not vote for the candidate who was put in.

I fear that my party has sabotaged its argument for the closed-list system by the way in which it is selecting its candidates for the European elections. At the end of the day, if I have the choice, I am an open-list person.