‘TRUST THE PEOPLE’ – TYLER

Liberal Democrat Peer, Lord (Paul) Tyler, today (Thursday) called on Ministers to “trust the people” with a refreshed, responsive political system.

Speaking in a House of Lords debate called by the Liberal Democrats, Lord Tyler said the recent Power Inquiry report had “shown that the citizens of this country believe that the representative Parliamentary system we have has become dysfunctional”.

The former MP for North Cornwall told fellow Peers of the decline in the two-party system over his 50-year political life.  “In the first General Election which attracted my interest,” he said, “96.1% of the national vote went to the Conservative or Labour Parties, the winning party gained a fraction less than 50%, every vote seemed to matter and the turnout was 76.8%.”

“In 2005, only 67.5% voted for two parties, only 35.2% voted for the winning party – that is just 21% of the registered electorate – which nevertheless won an overall majority of 66 in the Commons.”

The one certainty of the 50 years between 1955 and 2005 had been a “consistent reduction in linkage between the nation’s wishes and the electoral outcome,” Lord Tyler said.

Condemning the Government’s slow and belated review of electoral systems in Britain as “secret and incestuous” Lord Tyler, reminded Peers of the Prime Minister’s broken promise to bring:

an end to hereditary peers sitting in the House of Lords as the first step to a properly directly elected second chamber, and the chance for the people to decide after the election the system by which they elect the government of the future

Concluding for the Government, Baroness Ashton of Mulholland said that the public looked for politicians of “honesty and strength”. 

Speaking immediately after the debate, Lord Tyler said, “Baroness Ashton’s warm words about honesty and strength are all very well.  Yet, she supports a Prime Minister who has corrupted voters’ views of our entire politics by his consistent failure to renew our democracy.”

“The last nine years have shown that Labour has deserted its 1997 promises and only the Liberal Democrats are committed to taking power in order to give it back to the people.”

ENDS

…Notes to Editors follow...

Notes to Editors:

Tony Blair quote from New Britain, My Vision of A Young Country (London: Fourth Estate, 1996), p. 70

The Power Inquiry report suggests at Recommendation 12 that Britain should take up:
”A responsive electoral system – which offers voters a greater choice and diversity of parties and candidates – should be introduced for elections to the House of Commons, House of Lords and local councils in England and Wales to replace the first-past-the-post system”

The full report is available at: http://www.powerinquiry.org/

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds06/text/60615-14.htm