CHALLENGE TO BROWN

FAIR VOTES A VITAL TEST FOR NEW PREMIER

Speaking in the House of Lords, he said:  “When will the Government honour their manifesto promise to put to the people in a referendum the issue of elections to the House Commons? Does the Prime Minister designate regard this issue as a vital ingredient in his campaign to reconnect citizens with their Parliament?”

Lord Tyler emphasised to Peers that the 141,891 spoilt ballot papers in the recent Scottish elections were on the first-past-the-post and top-up ballot paper and not on the proportional representation STV ballot paper for local councils.  Liberal Democrat Chief Executive, Lord Rennard, added “the elections in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are much more likely to deliver to people the outcome they desired when they cast their votes than the Westminster first-past-the-post system did two years ago, when one party obtained a mere 35 per cent of the vote and won 55 per cent of the seats.”

The Minister said that the Government’s internal review of electoral systems would look at those used for the Greater London Assembly, the National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Parliament; and would also consider the findings of the Independent Commission on Proportional Representation (which reported nearly ten years ago), the Richard Commission and the Commission on Boundary Differences and Voting Systems.

Commenting after the exchange Lord Tyler said,

“This is the big issue if Gordon Brown is to have any hope at all of realising all his lofty ambitions about reconnecting people with the political system.

 “If the new Prime Minister continues with Tony Blair’s ten-year inertia on gaining fair votes for the UK Parliament, his narrow partisanship will be exposed, as will the emptiness of his assertions about leading a ‘new’ government.”

ENDS

The full exchange can be found at Col. 647, Official Report (Lords), 23rd May 2007, online at:  http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldhansrd/text/70523-0001.htm#07052362000005