Schedule 1 — Substitution of Schedule 1 to the Scotland Act 1998

Part of Orders of the Day — Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Bill – in the House of Commons at 8:00 pm on 4 May 2004.

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Photo of Alex Salmond Alex Salmond Parliamentary Leader (Westminster), Spokesperson (Constitutional Affairs; Treasury) 8:00, 4 May 2004

I did not say that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok was the only Labour Member who spoke in the debate. I said that he was the only Labour Member who spoke against the electoral system. Five Labour Members spoke in the debate, including the Father of the House, the then hon. Member for Midlothian, whose successor seems to have a different opinion, Mr. Stewart, who I suspect still has the same opinion, and the then hon. Member for Falkirk, West, who of course is no longer in the Labour party. Only the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok was against the system.

I accept the point that we have learned from experience. I was merely saying that very few people had the foresight at the time to identify the problems in the system. Where did they arise from? I am not an expert on the constitutional convention, but I suspect that the story runs something like this. The Liberal party on the convention wanted a single transferable vote. Although, as Mr. Lazarowicz pointed out, the Labour party had accepted proportional representation, it did not accept the single transferable vote and said that there could be a list system. The Liberals then said that they wanted 145 Members in the Scottish Parliament. The Labour party wanted about 100. The figure of 129 was settled on, as the least possible number to ensure some form of proportionality. So there was a process of horse trading, and perhaps it is hardly surprising that the system that arose from that was by no means perfect.

I have no idea which evil genius decided to have two ballots, which is unnecessary in an additional Member system. It is perfectly possible to operate an additional Member system with one ballot. Incidentally, it could be done—I would say this to the hon. Member for Midlothian if he were here—with ATV in the first ballot. Some people do it that way. I do not know exactly where the two ballot proposal arose from. We have heard Canon Kenyon Wright blamed. I thought that it was the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith, but he has specifically denied it in this debate and we have to accept his word.

The key problem with the current system in the Scottish Parliament arises from the second ballot. With great respect to the Labour Members who are concerned about list MSPs crawling all over their constituencies, I was an MSP and had list MSPs crawling over my constituency, but it never did me any harm. I do not reckon that it did the electorate much good, but it was not the most enormous issue. With respect to Mrs. Liddell, I do not think that the problem with the two votes is the one that she identified, namely that of people saying that a vote for Labour is a wasted vote. It is perfectly clear from an examination of the statistics on the second vote that a substantial minority, probably the majority of people voting, think that the second vote is a second preference. That applies to every party on the first vote. The fact that some parties reinforce that belief in their campaigning may add to the problem, but it is not the heart of the problem. If someone is given two ballot papers and told that they have two votes, it is a reasonable assumption, even for someone who is quite interested in the political system, that the second vote is not quite the same as the first and might be for a second preference. In my experience, most people think that the second vote is for a second preference. That is the heart of the problem, because it is a real corruption of the political system and must be dealt with, whatever else happens in the commission.

I am not an expert on the workings of the constitutional convention. To be able to plead not guilty to that is something of an asset, but I know a bit about the way in which the referendum campaign was conducted in Scotland. I have mentioned before that the Scottish news archive shows that the late Donald Dewar had 183 mentions during the election campaign. I had 120. The right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts had four. Mr. Foulkes had one. The Minister, who was a Back Bencher at the time, had five, and the current Secretary of State for Scotland had seven. Most of them may say that they were Ministers in other Departments, but Mr. Wilson was a Minister in the Scottish Office, and he had 15 speeches and contributions recorded in the referendum campaign. Eleven were references to his previous hostility to devolution; only one was about involvement in the campaign itself. It was launching referendum ice cream, sold by Ricardo Varani, the owner of the Forum café in Kilmarnock. "Very refreshing" was the then hon. Gentleman's comment. He was obviously crawling all over that constituency and sampling the ice cream.

I do know something about the referendum campaign, and the point was that it was not the specifics of the electoral system—and not even the 129 MSPs—but the idea of proportionality that was very much part of the campaign. Wanting to change the system is perfectly legitimate, given the problems that arise in that respect, but those who want a return to first past the post should remember that, although it was not a dominant or overwhelming part of the campaign, a significant argument in the campaign was that the Scottish Parliament would represent all of Scotland and be elected by a form of proportional representation. With great respect to the right hon. Member for Cunninghame, North and the other Cunninghame Member, Mr. Donohoe, there is a strong suspicion—without going into the detail of the electoral system that he would like to arrive at—that whatever else may be said about it, it is not a proportional system. Therefore, I suspect that he is cutting across one of the key arguments that were made when we jointly sought the consent of the people back in 1997.