Elections: First Past the Post

[Karl Turner in the Chair]

On a housekeeping matter, I should say that it is terribly hot in Parliament today, so Members and officials are very welcome to remove their jackets.

I beg to move, That this House has considered the use of first past the post in general and local elections.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner, and to be in an environment with such great air conditioning.

“I am committed to proportional representation…I think it would change the political culture. I don’t see how first past the post and the point scoring inherent within it lifts Britain out of the doom loop it is in.”

Those words could have been spoken by any Liberal Democrat Member, in this Chamber or beyond, but they were not: it is a direct quote from the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), who is believed to be the Prime Minister elect.

The quote not only highlights the need for proportional representation but underscores the limitations of first past the post, which the new right hon. Member for Makerfield identifies as causing political instability. The Liberal Democrats and the Liberal party before us have called for fair votes for a century, and I am delighted that the advocacy for change has a new voice in Parliament in the newly elected right hon. Member for Makerfield. The view should not be controversial among his colleagues, either: more than two thirds of the Labour party membership have voted in favour of adopting a system of proportional representation for UK elections. I look forward immensely to prospective new leadership in the Labour party representing the views of its members and finally ensuring fair votes for all.

Of course, support for change is not confined to the Labour party or the Liberal Democrats, but shared across the House. In December 2024, my ten minute rule Bill sought to introduce a system of proportional representation for parliamentary and local government elections. It passed in the main Chamber with cross party support, including from 59 Labour MPs. It was a historic moment in the House, as it was the first time that the Commons had voted in favour of reforming our electoral system to bring in a fairer and more representative process. However, my Bill spent a year and a half awaiting its Second Reading before ultimately falling, because the Government failed to make time for it in the previous parliamentary Session.

Concerns are often raised to me that a change of electoral system will benefit Reform UK and other right wing parties. Ironically, of the four Reform MPs who voted on my Bill, one voted against change while Reform’s leader, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), abstained. In an era of multi party politics, many parties are likely to benefit from a more proportional system. However, the Liberal Democrats are perhaps perfectly placed to neutrally make an argument in favour of the principles of proportional representation, as we received an almost exact proportion of votes to seats at the last general election. At last month’s local elections, the Liberal Democrats won every single seat on my local Richmond upon Thames council, but we won only 51.5% of the vote share. While the councillors will take every step possible to ensure that all residents are represented, the voting system produced results that disregarded 48.5% of voters in the borough. To repeat: the Liberal Democrats want electoral change on principle.

To address the increasing lack of public trust in politics, it is essential that the electorate know that their voices matter equally, wherever they are in the country. First past the post has not been fit for purpose for decades, but it has perhaps never been more outdated than it is now. The growth of the multi party system in our politics means that some constituency seats are being seriously contested by five, six or even seven different parties. A system that encourages competition from just two parties leads only to tactical voting: more than ever before, people are voting against a party that they do not want to win rather than for their first preference. With a fairer electoral system and more democratic institutions, politicians and parties will have to be more focused on the things that really matter to people. We will have better public services and a fairer society as a result, and people will feel more engaged with politics if they feel that their voices are being heard and represented.

One of the leading arguments in favour of first past the post used to be that it produced stable Governments—I think that argument has fallen by the wayside. I could poke fun at former Conservative Governments, or even the current Labour Government, but it is important to highlight that the first past the post system has proven to contribute to instability. This Government won 411 seats at the last general election with just 33.7% of the vote. The consequence of that has been clear: two thirds of people did not vote for a Labour Government, and, although the Government have made decisions that have not helped them, public opinion was against them from the start.

It is obvious that our electoral system needs to change. The man we believe will be Prime Minister is in favour of proportional representation and the Labour party is in favour of proportional representation. The House voted in favour of my Elections (Proportional Representation) Bill, and the last decade of governance has done nothing to convince me or the general public that first past the post produces stable governance. Our politics is not fit for purpose, and reform can begin with changing how we elect Members of Parliament to ensure that UK residents’ views are fairly represented in this place.

I understand that the Minister cannot commit to changing our electoral system, but I ask her whether that could be considered by a future Labour Government, or even the one set to continue under new leadership.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and congratulate the Richmond Liberal Democrats on their universal victory in last month’s Richmond upon Thames council elections. I declare an interest as a member of the all party parliamentary group for fair elections.

Increasing political participation in a democracy is not just a nice thing to have; it is an imperative that all of us must focus on in the service of our constituents. In the years to come, I genuinely believe that it will be the difference between a politics that serves and engages all and one that continues to obscure decision making from communities, fuels rather than addresses discontent, and pushes reasonable people in the United Kingdom to lose faith in democracy and seek increasingly radical solutions.

Progress has been made to increase structural participation, with the Government bringing forward votes at 16 in the Representation of the People Bill, finally aligning the voter age in general elections to that of Scottish local and devolved elections. Among other measures, the Government are taking steps in the Bill to strengthen our democracy. However, I believe that there is an omission in it: an acknowledgement that serious questions are now being asked about how we elect people to this place.

Look at the general election results: turnout is decreasing. I may have won my mandate to this place by trebling my vote share in Falkirk, but that was possible only because my second place opponent halved their vote share. The diminishing threshold for electing MPs and Governments demands a more pluralistic politics, or at least one that gives a greater number of people something to vote for instead of against.

First past the post structurally embeds negative political campaigning into how we participate in democracy; it enables parties, the media and the public to crystallise in our subconscious pretty early on that only two people have the chance to be the victor in a majority of seats in the country.

Like my hon. Friend, I have constituents who use proportional representation to elect people to local government or the Scottish Parliament. Does he agree that we have to learn lessons from both the positive and the negative elements in those electoral systems?

I completely agree that there is a wider point about the culture of politics, especially in how we should drive everybody in this place and local government to work together collaboratively, rather than pursuing the most populist option or blaming every problem on previous Governments. That has to be broader than simply reforming how we elect people to places, but I believe—I will bear this out later in my speech—that that is an essential first step.

In preparing this speech, I recalled bemused family members handing me SNP leaflet after SNP leaflet, desperately shoved through their letterbox, that warned them to vote SNP to avoid electing a Tory MP. I believe that even the most optimistic Scottish Conservative in Falkirk would have found that a pretty remote possibility in 2024, or at any other time. But when normal people who do not spend all their time obsessing about politics read that, it tends to turn them off a wee bit.

If we spend our entire time campaigning in general elections against a proposition and defining ourselves against a particular political party or perspective, we fail to lead our campaigns with our solutions to the problems the public face and want us to address. We diminish the opportunity for genuine scrutiny of our propositions, out of fear that the party or person we are running against will use it against us. It tends to encourage us to hide from debate, to reduce the utility and quality of public discussion and to disengage those people do not vote in our elections from that discussion.

It is irrelevant how those of us with the privilege of sitting here as Members of Parliament may personally view the politics of certain political parties; when they are voted for by millions of people and they see only a sliver of representation in Parliament, it closes people off from this place, and it feeds into toxic populist narratives that can be weaponised by those parties against those of us who sit as MPs. They are able to pit us as for the system and pit those excluded from it as outside of the system. It also allows them to avoid a proportionate level of scrutiny that reflects the amount of support they have in the country. A system that enables voters to see their views, and the views of those with similar political allegiances, proportionately reflected in this place will go a long way to addressing many of those issues.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee) touched on the more pluralistic electoral system used in local elections in Scotland and how it works to reflect views more broadly. Councillors of different political parties are often elected to serve the same people. Although that should culturally compel people to work together more effectively in communities, that is still a political challenge that we must address in tandem while we seek to replace the first past the post system.

Populist opposition for opposition’s sake is still rife. The relentless assignation of a problem’s cause to a sole person or political party in a particular office at a particular time creates a reductive and inadequate political debate that would be better spent evaluating multiple proposed solutions to the problems that people rely on democratic structures to resolve—especially because, out there in the real world, there is a substantially greater consensus on what problems we face as a country than would be suggested by the tone of conversation in this place, in council chambers and in devolved assemblies when they are evaluating the solutions.

Whether the debate is on immigration, taxation or the defence of the realm in the House of Commons, or schools, bins or housing in Falkirk council chamber, a proportional system gives us a better chance to compel political parties to use their privileged elected positions to put forward competing solutions consistently. Our desire to strengthen democracy should lead us to create a crucible that enables multiple proposals to compete and for us to come to the best resolution. Our constituents would be better served by a voting system that empowers us all to do better than lazily harass from the sidelines those who happen to be in a particular office at any particular time.

A cultural change is clearly needed, which cannot be achieved by simply replacing the electoral system, but replacing first past the post is an essential step. However, and this could be a point of contention, if we are to replace first past the post, we have to acknowledge that there is not currently an elected mandate to do so. There is also no consensus on which system should replace it, but we can see in the country that the current system is no longer commanding adequate participation to sustain a healthy democracy. That is why I and the members of the all party parliamentary group support a national commission on electoral reform to be set up by the Government. I encourage the Minister to put that in the Representation of the People Bill when it returns to the House.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this important debate and the hon. Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) for setting out so clearly that this is not an issue that sits on party lines. It is about the fundamental quality of our democracy and the fundamental question: are voters being adequately represented by our system? It is clear that the first past the post system is broken. We have a problem with political trust in this country, and the voting system is part of that.

Why is first past the post broken? It is clearly fundamentally unfair. In general elections, it has generated a two thirds majority on just one third of the vote; in some local elections, as the hon. Member for Richmond Park set out, it can generate a 100% majority on just half of the vote. That clearly leaves far too many voters unrepresented, in the sense that their voices are not heard by the people who are elected to hold power and who have influence. That is something we can and must fix, because what principle could be more basic in a democracy than the principle that everybody’s vote counts equally? If we believe in that fundamental principle, we have to recognise the urgency of moving to proportional representation.

First past the post is not just unfair because it leads to completely skewed results; it is also unpopular. According to the latest British social attitudes survey, only just over a third of voters now want to retain the system. Why is that? It is because they perceive how the system is poisoning our politics—how this binary, polarised, winner takes all politics means that we do not have the politics that people want.

Time after time voters say to me on the doorstep that they do not want the bear pit politics they see at Prime Minister’s questions. They want a politics in which people with differing ideas sit around a table, have a decent, grown up conversation, put all the good ideas into the pot and work out what is best for the country—a politics in which policies are motivated by the public interest, not by party political interests, and certainly not by the choices that so many seem to be forced into in our current system, in which policies are put forward on the basis that they will appeal to a certain small proportion of voters in a certain small proportion of seats at the next general election.

Such short termism poisons and undermines our politics, which is why voters themselves recognise that it is time for change. A majority of people who support every single one of the five main parties in the UK now say that it is time to shift to proportional representation. A majority across all five parties is a degree of political consensus that we as politicians should listen to.

The next reason why first past the post does not work is that it does not work on its own terms. Back in the day, decades ago, it was argued that first past the post leads to stable government and stability in policy making, but that is completely belied by the experience of our politics, which we have seen year after year, week after week, day after day—indeed, this week. We must recognise that first past the post does not work in a multi party political system. And we are in a multi party political system: we are no longer in the old two party system, and there is no going back to that. We need to recognise that, respond to what voters and the public want, and move forward.

All that is why proportional representation offers the solution. It is the antithesis to first past the post. Where first past the post is unfair, proportional representation is fair, because every vote counts equally. Where first past the post is unpopular, proportional representation is popular, because people recognise that it will ensure that their voices are heard. And it is effective, which is why it has been adopted across the vast majority of OECD countries. This country is an outlier in sticking with tired, old and broken first past the post.

Proportional representation yields politics, a political culture and governance that require people to talk to and listen to each other, and that require us to seek the common ground. Just last week, the House was celebrating the memory of Jo Cox. Her words—that there is more that unites us than divides us—should be a lodestar for all of us in politics, reminding us that we need to work to seek the common ground, emphasise where we can work together, and not be constantly putting ourselves in binary opposition to one another, creating polarisation and deepening our difficulties.

We can change our political culture by adopting proportional representation. It is not a silver bullet to transform every part of our politics, but it will certainly make a key difference.

The hon. Lady is making a very passionate speech, and she is certainly right that we have to change our political culture, but I would slightly challenge her. We have a slightly more proportional system in Scotland, but it has not led to a different culture in the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government get elected on 30-odd per cent of the vote and pretend they speak for the entire nation, unilaterally. Does the hon. Lady agree that although proportional representation could be part of how we resolve the issue, a wider change in culture is required as well?

Order. Interventions need to be a bit shorter. Thank you.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that changing the voting system will not in itself transform our political culture. We need to do many other things, including get big money and disinformation out of politics, but changing our voting system is a key plank of that.

I recognise that, as the hon. Member for Falkirk mentioned, the Labour party does not feel that it currently has a manifesto mandate to implement proportional representation—I am deeply saddened by that—but it has a manifesto mandate to take strong action to tackle the breakdown of trust in our politics. As a Green, I would like there to be no more elections under first past the post in the UK, but it would be hugely dangerous to go into the next general election under that system, because we face the very real prospect of a Government being elected with a huge majority of MPs and a small minority of votes. That should concentrate the minds of everyone in this Chamber.

This is quite a serious point. There are people arguing for PR to be introduced before the next general election, for the reason the hon. Lady outlined, but she must accept, as a democrat, that we cannot change the electoral system because we are worried about a certain outcome. We have to look at the bigger picture, take our time and do it right.

All the arguments I have made in the last five minutes have been about the systemic, principled reasons for change; they are not views about one particular party. I will be absolutely clear that I hugely fear the prospect of a Reform Government, and I will do everything I can to stop that. It would be hugely dangerous for this country. But the argument for proportional representation is about the representation of everybody, including people with whose views I completely disagree. If they have a degree of support in the country, they should be represented in proportion to that. The point is that under a proportional system, those of us who want to work together for the common good of the country would be able to do so.

The principle of proportional representation is core to the Green party’s DNA. I have campaigned for it for many years, and I welcome the fact that so many in Labour and other parties campaign for it, too. But there are specific things that this Government can do right now. There is a cross party call for a national commission on electoral reform, which the Government could take forward today. That would enable us to have a national conversation about how to make our democracy genuinely work for everybody, involving citizens’ voices and the voices of those with expertise, who can bring ideas from international counterparts.

We must have that conversation. We cannot stay asleep at the wheel, drifting into ever more polarised politics, ever less representation and ever poorer electoral systems that do not serve the fundamental principle of democracy that we should all hold dear: every vote should count equally.

Order. I am going to impose an informal five minute limit on speeches.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I apologise for giving you late notice of my intention to speak. I start by acknowledging that although I am not a fan of PR, it is right that all of us MPs do a great job representing every one of our constituents, whether they voted for us or not.

In Scotland, we have three elections over each five year period. Two of them use PR and one, the general election, uses first past the post. I want to talk about the single transferable vote system that we use for local authority elections in Scotland, and my lived experience of it as a councillor. I was elected via the STV system back in 2017. I came second out of three councillors who were elected, and was elected thanks to transfers from Green voters. Even though some transfers also came from elsewhere, it was the Green voters who got me across the line, so I always felt an obligation to make sure that those few people were very well represented.

I worked alongside two Conservatives in the ward over that three year period. The council had 63 councillors in total. An SNP led administration was formed, supported by Labour in a coalition, but it tended to be Green votes that got things across the line, so those three parties tended to work together. I have to say that the Greens back then were a bit more sensible than they sometimes are today. I hope the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns) is not offended by that.

I must pay tribute to my ward colleague Jason Rust, who is still a councillor in the Colinton, Oxgangs and Fairmilehead ward. He has been there for a long time and he is a fantastic, hard working councillor—despite being a Tory.

In 2022, I stood for re election, and on that occasion I managed to come first under the STV system, which was a huge privilege and honour. The SNP managed to take one of the Conservative seats. The SNP candidates’ tricky strategy was that they went around looking for people who were voting for me and asked whether they would give them their second votes. I thought that was quite sneaky, but it got the party across the line. That is evidence that PR leads to a different way of campaigning, in that people look for alignment between parties during the election, not just afterwards.

The formation of the council was a bit trickier in 2022: 63 councillors were elected, and only 13 were Labour councillors. However, Labour managed to run the city, and is still running it, as a minority administration—if my memory serves me right, there are now 12 Labour councillors out of 63—largely because, given the tensions among the other parties, they find ways to support us from time to time. Again, that is a different kind of politics.

I convened the transport committee from ’22 up until I was unexpectedly elected as an MP. On my committee were two Labour, two Green, two Tory, two Lib Dem and three SNP councillors, all elected via the STV system. Each report we had to pass meant creating an individual coalition of votes. By and large, that meant that the other parties, if they were to support my proposals to the committee, wanted something added or taken away.

Reflecting on that after two years, I would say that every deal I did with the other parties made what we were proposing better. Ultimately, I was elected only by a minority of people, even in the STV system; the other councillors were elected by people as well, and it was important that their views were taken on board. The outcome was fairer, and it created a better kind of politics in the council. I am not saying that there were not disagreements—if I am honest, there was sometimes was quite bad behaviour from councillors—but PR works in Scotland.

The results in England show the brutal way in which first past the post treats council elections—it looked like cavemen trying to start politics up and get democracy working. Some of the results were anomalous, and we have to reflect on that.

PR for general elections would have to come via a manifesto commitment and a referendum—a manifesto commitment would not be enough. I support the call for a national commission, but I do not think there is any appetite among the public for another referendum on anything. The APPG for fair elections recently had a meeting with John Curtice. He said there was a consensus that the only way to move the UK to PR in a general election would be if a coalition was formed and one of the partners demanded PR in return for the stability of the coalition. Of course, we saw that in the past, in the alternative vote referendum, which I think it is fair to say was disastrous. We heard the other day that the Lib Dems held up the submarine building programme. The failure to deliver PR back then is a real issue, and we should reflect on it.

Although there is a huge hurdle to installing PR for general elections, we could move much faster on council elections in England. We could consult and then deliver. I have two final points—

Order. Quickly, if you do not mind. We have an informal five minute limit.

I apologise; I have not been looking at the clock.

First, we are the only country in Europe that uses first past the post, and we should reflect on why that is. Secondly, in Scotland we use the d’Hondt—or Jefferson—system for PR for the second votes. Nobody really understands how that works, and we have to be careful about that. We have to be able to communicate how the result has been reached. I apologise for overrunning, Mr Turner.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney).

I will shed some light from a constituency that operates PR for local government and Northern Ireland Assembly elections. The hon. Lady—I spoke to her already—and I will have slightly different opinions on this matter, but I respect her greatly. Indeed, I respect all my colleagues on the Opposition Benches—[Interruption.] And on the Government Benches, by the way—sorry, but I corrected myself quickly. We may have differences of opinion, but there are many more things that we agree on.

I will put forward the point of view from Northern Ireland. I say gently and respectfully to the House that the DUP and, indeed, the people of Northern Ireland speak on this matter with a unique form of authority. We are not better than anybody else; it is just that we have done this for a great number of years. We do not just look at alternative voting systems in theory or on academic balance sheets. Through the single transferable vote, we live it, operate within it and contest it in every single local government mandate and Northern Ireland Assembly election. STV is the law of the land.

First, I want to look at the undisputed champion of stability—forgive me, those close to me who may not agree with this—the first past the post system used for our UK general elections. First past the post delivers what the British public value above almost all else in Governments: clarity, accountability and a direct, inseverable link between a Member of Parliament and their constituents. When the voters of Strangford sent me here, they knew exactly who was responsible for standing up for local schools, roads, hospitals and many other issues—farming, fishing and immigration. There is no hiding behind a party list. There is no passing the buck to three or four regional members. The buck stops with the constituency MP.

For the record, whenever I have been elected as an MP—that has been five times—I have always said in my election speech that I thank everybody who voted for me and those who did not vote for me, because I am still their MP and I will work for everybody to the fullest of my ability. I fought seven council elections and five Assembly elections, including for the Forum for Political Dialogue. This is my 41st year as an elected representative; it has been a long time. I started with hair and now I have none, so maybe that is the reason—I do not know.

First past the post provides a clear outcome. It allows the electorate to decisively choose a Government or throw one out. I believe that it prevents the sort of backroom political horse trading we see perpetuated across Europe, where coalitions are cobbled together weeks after an election has finished, rendering the manifestos that parties fought on and the public voted for completely meaningless. I point Members towards the Republic of Ireland, where partnership or coalition Governments are cobbled together each and every time. In doing so, parties have to water down what they set out to the electorate in their manifestos.

Let us contrast first past the post with our experience back home in Northern Ireland. We use PR via STV for councils and the Assembly. Although STV was introduced as a tool to ensure cross community representation in a deeply divided society, let us be honest about its practical realities. First, it is complex. Sometimes it is confusing. Every election shows that many people, no matter how many times they are told how the PR system works, still spoil their votes by marking six or seven Xs, or by writing one, two, three, four, five and six in different columns. Someone might put ones, twos or even threes for everybody; the PR system is confusing for them.

STV also fundamentally dilutes the democratic mandate. Counting goes on for days. Fractional transfers of votes decide who wins the final seats. Candidates with a minuscule share of first preference votes can end up being elected on the 10th or 11th count, not because they were anybody’s first choice but because they were the least disliked one. A candidate someone disliked the most could still be elected, even though they did not want them to be.

I am very conscious of time. First past the post has preserved the integrity of this Parliament for centuries. It ensures that Governments are robust and that the Union remains anchored by a strong, understandable and decisive democratic process. We must never trade a system of proven stability and direct accountability for one of permanent compromise, fractured local representation and endless coalition haggling. I strongly urge the House to reject this proposal—although, of course, we will not vote on it—and to maintain the strength of first past the post, the best system there is. Let us continue with it.

Thank you, Mr Shannon—nearly bang on time.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this important debate. Some months ago, I was in this room on the International Day of Democracy, and the concerns I raised then matter now more than ever. I have not seen a political discourse that is so polarised as it is today. Tensions have risen, divisions are deepening, and the public is losing faith in our democracy.

I am proud that my constituency is a diverse community, bustling with local campaign groups and organisations. I love my work with those groups, building strong relations across all faiths, ages, ethnic groups and with people from all political backgrounds. However, I am not blind to the fact that more people voted for other candidates in the last general election than voted for me.

The first past the post system is a brutal way to determine the future of our country. It often creates a situation where winning candidates need only a small section of a community to back them, leaving many votes pointlessly cast and making some constituencies more important for determining the direction of our country than others. First past the post distorts our democracy leaving many unrepresented, unheard and disillusioned. It creates a winner takes all system that incentivises parties to work against each other and encourages those who want to divide our communities rather than unite them.

We are at a crucial moment where progress can be made and where we can build a stronger, cohesive community. We have to make the right choice; we have to make proportional representation the default. We must strengthen our democracy and make people feel seen and heard. We must empower local people to shape their societies and build a politics that works for them. We must encourage politicians to work in collaboration. There will always be disagreements—that needs to be encouraged—but finding common ground and moving forward is the only way we can solve the huge questions that our country faces.

The other option is to do nothing and carry on as we are, watching our politics become even more fractured and polarised. We could carry on with a system where parties chase the votes that will make them the winner and the others the losers, and where bad faith actors are encouraged to divide our communities in an effort to secure the win. I hope that all Members in this room know which option is the right one and what the right path for our country is.

We need proportional representation for a healthier, engaged and united society. This Government have made progress, but more needs to be done. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 was an opportunity for the Government to enact true electoral reform for local elections, but they chose not to do that. We must choose proportional representation as our default electoral system. I ask that the Minister reflects on the arguments made today and makes the right choice.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this important and urgent debate.

We have a crisis of trust in our democracy. Under first past the post, 70% of votes do not actually count. In a safe seat any extra votes cast for the winning candidate are effectively pointless, as are any votes cast for the other candidates. It is no wonder that so much of the electorate feel that they have no real voice or influence. We may be told that electoral reform is not a doorstep issue, but I wonder how many colleagues here have heard constituents say, “I am so pleased that I finally voted for somebody who won. I feel like I now personally have a representative in Westminster.”

At the last general election, the current Government got 30% of the vote, 60% of the seats and they now have 100% of the power. How can that be fair? In effect, that means that 70% of votes have no power. As a Lib Dem who regularly traipses through the opposite voting Lobby to the Government, I know how that feels.

Looking forward, I am even more worried about the next general election. The system that we have now was essentially designed for a two party system and we now have seats being fought by five, six or even more viable parties. If we combine that with declining voter turnout, the results of the next general election could look like a random number generator. I cannot see that that will do anything to enhance trust in our democratic system.

First past the post encourages parties to focus their policies on core marginal seats that they want to influence. That means the kind of policies they present and whether they suit a constituency will depend largely on the postcode and political history of that constituency. As other colleagues have mentioned, the winner takes all system creates a similar adversarial tone in our politics. We only have to look at today’s Prime Minister’s questions where there seemed to be a special amount of nastiness from the Leader of the Opposition. Mr Speaker, not in connection with that, reminded us generally that the way we conduct ourselves here sets the tone for public discourse across the whole of the country. We lead by example, and at the moment that example is not good.

There is a deeper argument to be made about power and agency. We hear from so many parts of the country that communities feel left behind, voiceless and unrepresented. That voicelessness—that powerlessness—is creating fertile ground for people and parties who come along promising to give back control, whether or not they actually mean it. That, frankly, terrifies me, but I want to keep this a clean discussion about voting systems. We are not trying to create a system that favours one party or another; we want a genuinely democratic system.

On the systems used in different elections, it was welcome that the Government reintroduced supplementary vote for mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections. It corrected a deliberate act of Conservative vandalism in the Elections Act 2022, but it is still not proportional representation. I wish the Government had gone further and introduced alternative vote for those single position elections.

The proof is in the result. In last year’s mayoral elections, the Mayor of the West of England won with just 25% of the vote. That is clearly not democracy. If first past the post is not fit for purpose in mayoral elections, the Government should be honest and admit that it is not fit for purpose anywhere.

I have some specific asks. We should move from first past the post to a form of PR, and I would love that to happen in a rigorous, transparent and democratic way, starting as we mean to go on, with a citizens’ assembly, fully selected by sortition, and the national commission on electoral reform serving as its secretariat. It should be fully livestreamed and available to anybody who wants to watch it. That would help hit the reset button on our democracy and restore faith that the Government truly represent the will of the people.

Order. Before I move on to the next speaker, can I just say something about housekeeping? If a right hon. or hon. Member intends to mention another Member of this House—specifically, the leader of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition—they should inform that Member. I am sure it was done inadvertently, but I say that just in case other Members wish to make mention of it.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this important debate.

Our politics is not fit for purpose and is not working for people up and down the country. It is becoming increasingly adversarial and divisive. The first past the post system actively encourages parties not to work together, which allows the Government to avoid accountability and ignore the voices of the people who put them into Parliament. I have heard from so many of my constituents in Wokingham who are sick of feeling ignored by politics in Westminster and feel that the system—and, therefore, the Government—does not work for them. People in Wokingham and across the country want to know that they will be represented in Parliament by somebody they have an affinity with, and they want their vote to have counted.

As a very young teenager, still at school and unable to vote, I witnessed the general election of February 1974. I wanted the Liberals to win. They increased their vote to 18%, and their seats in the House of Commons increased from eight to 14. If the result had been proportional, they should have had 110 Members, and it would have been a properly balanced Parliament, which I am sure would have dealt with the issues of the day better than the Wilson and Callaghan Governments. I saw that as a massive injustice, and it helped to drive my interest in politics.

My Lib Dem colleagues and I have long called for fair votes through proportional representation. As a party, we have spearheaded the campaign for electoral reform in Parliament. Electoral reform is by no means a panacea for this country’s problems, but a much better, more democratic electoral system is a fundamental step towards politicians representing the country properly. That is why this Government must replace the first past the post system with proportional representation for both general and local elections in England.

Democracy can be revived by strengthening our democratic institutions and by taking the big money out of politics. The Government need to cap donations to political parties and stop foreign oligarchs and crypto billionaires interfering in our democracy. How can anyone think that a £5 million gift with no strings attached, or whatever the reason for the gift is, can be nothing to do with anyone except the recipient? These attitudes in our politics are very dangerous.

Politicians should represent and be accountable to their constituents first and foremost—not some millionaire, or even billionaire, who may or may not pay UK taxes. Politicians cannot afford to take voters for granted as successive Labour and Conservative Governments have. We need to repair the damage of years of sleaze, cronyism and rule breaking and end the era of neglect. We need a political system with fair representation that makes politics work for all our constituents again.

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this debate. The House of Commons Library has called the 2024 general election the least proportional election in British history. Labour won 411 seats out of 650—almost two thirds of the Commons—on a third of the vote. The problem is not that a party can win power; the problem is that first past the post inflates that power beyond what the public voted for. A system that turns one third of the votes into two thirds of the power and a massive majority is not representing the public’s choice; it is warping it. As we have all seen, it allows wildly unpopular policies to be forced through with little pushback.

I may not agree with Reform, but they came third on vote share with around 14% and won just five seats. The Greens won roughly 7% and returned only four seats. The truth is that my own party, the Liberal Democrats, took 72 seats on around 12% of the vote. The system rewarded us where our support was concentrated. That means that under first past the post, where you live decides whether or not your vote counts. We have all been told that this gives us a strong and stable Government. Clearly, that is not true. A system that hands enormous power to one party on a minority of the vote does not produce consistency; it produces lurches. One Government builds solutions; the next tears them down and creates their own.

I represent the Scottish seat of Mid Dunbartonshire. Scotland shows both how far reform can take us and why it must go further. The Scottish Parliament has used a form of proportional representation since its creation in 1999. Of its 129 Members, 73 are elected to represent 73 constituencies and 56 from regional lists using the D’Hondt system. That is a complicated system of proportional representation that very few voters fully understand. Last month at the Scottish elections, the SNP won 58 seats and was the party with the highest number of seats. Following a deal with the Scottish Green party, which had 15 seats, the Scottish Government are calling for the UK Government to agree to a second independence referendum. However, taken together, pro independence parties now hold 73 of the 129 seats on around 43% of the vote.

Does the hon. Member that if we are to move to an alternative system in Westminster, parties should agree not to game the system, as the Scottish Greens do when they fail to stand in constituencies such as Strathkelvin and Bearsden or Falkirk West and focus their campaigning on the regional seats, which leads to the iniquitous outcome of the 2026 Scottish parliamentary elections that I think she is suggesting?

What we need to aim for is a system where our constituents feel properly represented and that their vote counts.

The parties that want Scotland to remain in the United Kingdom won a majority of the votes at 56.7%, but a minority of the seats. As a litmus test, that result shows little change from the result of the 2014 independence referendum, which rejected independence by 55% to 44%. The votes cast in the 2026 Scottish election are not a mandate for a second independence referendum, despite what the First Minister might have us believe. That clearly demonstrates why it is so important that our democracy reflects voter intention. Instead, the case for independence has been thrust back to the centre of Scottish politics, taking attention away from the real issues such as our broken schools and hospitals.

In 2022, Labour’s own conference voted for a proportional system. Its own national policy forum has recognised that the flaws in the current voting system contribute to the distrust and alienation that we see in politics, and it is widely acknowledged that we need to restore trust in politics. I ask the Government, at the very least, to agree to examine the system seriously, including how we elect Members and how a fairer system could be introduced. People should be able to use their vote to vote for something, not against something. Evey vote should carry the same weight, wherever it is cast and whoever it is cast for, and the only way we can achieve that is proportional representation.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this debate, for her passionate opening remarks and for her courage and nobility in potentially being willing to sacrifice the North Korean esque majorities that our party achieved in the recent local elections.

I fear that, given the heat, there would be frayed tempers if I made my speech about the relative merits or otherwise of alternatives to first past the post. Instead, I shall make the case for how change could make a major contribution to fixing our politics, because so much of what is holding our country back is one party or another—it does not really matter which one—having undiluted power, and not having other parties in government to be the voice of conscience, alternative ideas and challenge.

That is one of the reasons why we have yet to make progress on social care, despite innumerable reviews and commissions on how we should resolve that very challenging issue. As other hon. Members have said, first past the post has not succeeded in delivering political stability over the last decade, because we have had seven Prime Ministers in 10 years. We also see the phenomenon manifesting in other ways: stop start decisions on transport or various Governments enthusiastically advocating for different devolution models, rather than as many of us as possible uniting on one.

When researching for this debate, I wondered what fuels our apparent fear of moving away from first past the post. Nearly all the other countries in the world that have that voting system are former parts of the British empire. That shows a positive thing about Britain in the sense that the empire and its legacy have helped to introduce democracy, or at least forms of it, to large parts of the world. However, some former members of the empire have found themselves able to make progress and move on. Australia and New Zealand are two countries that we greatly admire, and they have decided to ditch first past the post in favour of something else.

In the meantime, we have to ask ourselves whether proportional representation is really so bad. We seem to think it is not in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, so what is it about introducing a proportional voting system that has England trembling in fear and terror at the very idea? It is almost as if we think civilisation would end if England were to embrace some of these concepts. We are already seeing how parties can work together when there are fractured election results, as recent English council elections have shown that we have the capability to have multi party negotiations and multi party local governments. We should embrace that maturity and hope to have it in this place one day as well.

The current Prime Minister’s love of first past the post was shown in a remarkably clear answer when I asked him recently whether he thought it can still deliver strong and stable government. He gave me a three word answer: “Yes, I do.” I suppose it remains to be seen whether the next Prime Minister, whoever they may be, will agree with him.

Looking to the future, as well as the prospect of a new Prime Minister and perhaps a new way of thinking on these topics, we do not need to debate which voting system to choose to replace first past the post. That is not the next best step; a national commission for electoral reform could properly look at the pros and cons of the options and think through the matter. We saw the support for that in the 143 signatories to an amendment to the Representation of the People Bill tabled by the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel): 81 Labour signatures, 48 from the Liberal Democrats and the rest from many other parties, though interestingly none from Reform UK, despite its past commitment to proportional representation. That might be another issue where it finds itself embracing establishment thinking, despite telling us that it is the radical saviour of our future.

For now, it is over to the Labour party, which is commanding a remarkable 18% support in opinion polls, to determine our future. [Interruption.] That is the polling average, I say to the hon. Gentleman speaking from a sedentary position. We should only look at polling averages, never individual ones. I conclude with a direct appeal to whoever is the next Prime Minister. There seems to be a lot of reporting on who that is likely to be but, as I have not notified that individual, I shall avoid naming them.

Let us hope that the expectation and hype around the possible next Prime Minister are justified, because this is about changing our politics for the better and for good. It is about embracing the most meaningful change for transforming our political culture: proportional representation. We need that for social care, political stability and empowering our region.

Thank you for the entertaining contribution, Mr Morrison.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Turner. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) on securing this vital debate. Like many colleagues, we have both been vocal, proud advocates for political reform. This debate builds on the important work of my hon. Friend in the previous session, when she won a vote on the Second Reading of her Bill to bring PR to elections for national and local government in England. That was a clear sign that the demand for reform exists across the House and continues to grow.

In her excellent opening remarks, my hon. Friend mentioned the newly re elected right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) whom I have told I would mention. He is not alone in his support for proportional representation. The right hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), the deputy leader of the Labour party, has said that she has always supported electoral reform. From a different side of the political spectrum, the Conservative London Assembly member Emma Best has said her party should start thinking seriously about proportional representation. She speaks compellingly, making a strong Conservative argument for PR.

When voices across the political spectrum are saying the same, the Government should listen. I am proud to sit as vice chair for the all party parliamentary group for fair elections, which is the largest APPG and shows clear cross party support for replacing first past the post with a proportional system. It is good to see several members of the APPG here today. We have heard from a number of them, so I will reflect on some of their comments. My fellow vice chair, the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns), reminded us that PR is fair. We are in a multi party political system and first past the post, which was set up for two parties, is no longer fit for purpose.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) talked in detail about his experience on the city council, and how PR in Scotland works. My constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison), said that despite being elected on a minority of votes, he represents well his whole community. That is an urgent issue, to ensure that people have trust in our system. My hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) talked about how the voting system shapes the way we campaign, focusing on a core number of marginal seats and a group of voters in them. My hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) reminded us that PR is not a panacea—he is absolutely right to do so—but it is a fundamental step in the right direction towards a fairer, better system.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) reminded us how PR shapes how we campaign and what we choose to do and not do with our resources. My hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover)—while doing an impression of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle—gave us examples from overseas and of parties working together in local government. He also reminded us that sorting out the voting system would better enable us to sort out our country.

I know that objections are made to reform. We are told that PR means weaker coalitions, constant instability or Members who answer to a party list rather than the people they serve. To those who have those concerns, I point to the weakness, instability and chaos, frankly, that we have seen over the past decade. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made his case, as he often does; he had a very good go at making arguments that I disagree with, but I am sorry to say that he failed to convince me on this occasion. Seven Prime Ministers in 10 years is not what a well functioning system looks like.

Our current system is failing, and we have such a great opportunity to push forwards and make positive reforms. Some may look at each change of Prime Minister as a story about one person, one party or one bad week in Westminster, but that just does not cut it. When a pattern repeats again and again, it stops being about individual issues, personalities or failures and starts reflecting the system that produces them. First past the post manufactures large majorities out of modest vote shares, and those majorities are built on such shallow foundations that they can collapse as quickly as they were built. Instability is not a glitch in our multi party system; it is a feature of it.

There are various forms of PR. I will not try your patience, Mr Turner, by ranking them in order of my preference—I will save that for the Lib Dem conference—but, suffice to say, the Liberal Democrats support the single transferrable vote. It keeps a strong direct link between Members and the place they represent. Constituents have local MPs to turn to, but they would have a real hand in choosing them. That is the price of different voting systems.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, especially as she is my friend on the armed forces parliamentary scheme. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I am sorry I was not here at the beginning of the debate; I was at a really important statement on Nottingham maternity services in the main Chamber. Does the hon. Lady not agree that, even if some commission came forward and said that STV was absolutely the way to go and that we should adopt it in future, this country should adopt it only if the electorate validates that through a general election where a majority of the parties making that promise win a majority in Parliament, or through a referendum?

I am not personally a fan of a referendum. They can be quite divisive and they return one of two answers, so I would not support one. The Liberal Democrats have had a fairer voting system in our manifesto since the foundation of our party. I believe that the current Government, whose party the hon. Member is a member of, have put forward some other suggestions that were not in their manifesto in 2024, so it is possible for situations to change. It is possible for the world to move on, and for people of good will to work together for the betterment of our country.

Single transferrable votes for the House and for local councillors in England would mean that communities would not be written off because they were a safe seat, and nobody would feel that their vote was wasted. We could also introduce more nuance into a debate than can be delivered via the medium of bar chart. Consider the previous general election: the Labour party won about two thirds of the seats in the House on roughly one third of the vote. A system that can hand near total control of the Commons to a party that two in three voters did not vote for cannot honestly claim to speak for the country.

The Liberal Democrats have argued for fair votes for decades, because a democracy in which every vote counts is a better democracy. I do not want to spend my time today just listing what is broken, because the more important point is that we have in front of us a genuine opportunity to put it right. The appetite for reform is no longer confined to the Liberal Democrat Benches; it is growing across the House and across the country. We need to fix our politics so that we can fix our country. An amended Representation of the People Bill could be the vehicle to deliver it and to give this country a voting system worthy of the people it serves. I hope the Minister will tell us today that the Government are ready to take that chance.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I genuinely thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this debate on our voting system. She and I do not always agree. In fact, it might be more accurate to say that we more often than not disagree vocally, although in good spirit, I hope. Although I do not share her views on electoral reform, I recognise and respect the sincerity with which she holds them. Her persistence in bringing the issue before the House reflects her commitment to the causes that she champions. She beat me in another forum on Times Radio’s “It’s a Constituency Knockout” for the good people of Richmond Park. And I lost a battle on her private Member’s Bill, but we will see about round three.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is my only ally in this debate, barring what the Minister might say. I am happy to have him as an ally, because he is one of the most respectful Members of this House. He is a braver man than me, as he is surrounded by my old Bill Committee adversaries.

We can all agree on one thing, though: electoral systems shape our politics. It is important that the method we use for catapulting representatives into high office is robust and secure, easily understood by voters, and provides strong local accountability. I believe, as my party has always believed, that the first past the post system achieves that better than any other.

I do not often pay compliments to my Liberal Democrat colleagues, so they are in for a shock this afternoon, but one of their skills is mobilising voters to go to the polls. I have seen that myself on my home patch, much to my and my councillors’ annoyance. One of the clearest criticisms of first past the post is the impact that it has on eroding voter confidence in the electoral system and therefore suppressing turnout. However, I do not believe that that is the case. Voter turnout has been on the decline for generations, but not consistently. It is fair to say that we are unlikely to see the levels of the 80% turnouts of the 1940s and 1950s. Growing voter apathy is a problem, but I do not think that the electoral system is to blame per se. The blame is with us as politicians—all of us. I sincerely believe that if we inspire, we make others aspire. We can all raise our game in this House and as political parties.

I find it slightly bizarre to keep revisiting a debate that the British public have made clear they do not support. First past the post has proven to be the fairest and most effective way to elect representatives, ensuring clear accountability, stable governance—I will come back to that—and a direct link between elected officials and their constituents. We want a system that forms a single alternative Government rather than the more fragmented alternative often seen under proportional representation systems. I think that is not just a theoretical point.

In countries where proportional representation is used, we can see the consequences of fragmentation very clearly. For example, in Belgium, proportional representation has contributed to fragmented Parliaments and lengthy coalition negotiations where no single party is able to present itself clearly as a Government in waiting. Clarity of outcome is an important feature in our democratic system.

As Members of Parliament, first and foremost our roles are to represent our constituents and our constituencies here in Parliament. First past the post creates a clear and direct link between Members of Parliament and the people we represent. It provides the voter with clarity over who represents them, whose surgery they can go to, who they can hold to account and, importantly, who they can remove at a general election. Such clarity is a democratic strength and a crucial part of maintaining voter trust.

Why would we adopt a system that weakens the direct link between voters and their representatives? Proportional voting systems where members are elected from long party lists make that relationship less direct and less clear. That direct constituency link is not only a practical strength of the system, but part of a much longer tradition in our parliamentary democracy. I think many advocates for an alternative voting system overlook the historical significance of first past the post. It has been in place since medieval England, and it is the bedrock of our democracy. Changing the way we elect Members of this House is not a minor administrative matter. It is not a decision that should be taken lightly, nor should it be driven by dissatisfaction with a particular electoral outcome.

Given the hon. Gentleman’s faith in the first past the post system, does he have any theories as to why turnout in our elections tends to be significantly lower than in comparable western European countries?

I believe I have already addressed that point: it is because of us, as politicians. I absolutely agree with many of the comments that Members across the House have made today about trust in politicians and the level of discourse, but we need to improve our game. I do not believe that there is a direct correlation between the voting system and turnouts at general elections; I genuinely think that it is normally about whether a voter feels good or not. If the hon. Gentleman’s only issue is voter turnouts and he wants to have a conversation about compulsory voting, then I am up for that debate, but I do not believe that we should move to another system without looking at whether voting should be compulsory or by choice.

It is worth recalling, as I lightly touched on, that the British public have previously been asked whether they wish to move away from the existing voting system for Westminster elections. That was in 2011, and it was a condition of the Liberal Democrats being in government from 2010 to 2015. A clear majority voted to retain first past the post rather than adopt an alternative system. In fact, only 2% of local counting areas wanted rid of first past the post.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the alternative vote is a preferential voting system, not a proportional system?

Absolutely, and we can talk about that, but that was the system that the Liberal Democrats proposed in that referendum, and they lost the argument when they were in government. When they were last in government, they put a question on reforming the voting system to the country and it was resoundingly rejected. I agree with the hon. Lady; I am not in favour of referendums a lot of the time. But I believe that we have put the issue of reforming our voting system to bed for the foreseeable future—that is, unless a Government come in with a manifesto commitment to change the voting system, in which case we can have that discussion, even though my party would still oppose it.

It is worth saying that 2% of local counting areas voted against the last referendum. I struggle to see why we would reopen a question on which the public have already expressed a clear preference. That, in my view, is the crux of the matter. This debate is not fundamentally about voter understanding or participation; it is about dissatisfaction with how support for certain parties translates into seats under the current system.

Many Members make the case that we should switch to a proportional representation system in order to follow the example of other major democratic nations. I do not accept that. This country has consistently delivered stable Governments—which is slightly ironic, given the last week or so. I also remind Members of the comments made in previous contributions: we vote for Members of Parliament, not for Prime Ministers. That is the key point about the system in our country. The right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) has been spoken of as the Prime Minister elect. We do not have that. We elect Members of Parliament, and the party that has the most MPs forms a Government. If they do not have a majority, they try to form a coalition—that has happened in recent history. We do not vote for Prime Ministers. That is why I do not think that argument pushes the case forward for proportional representation.

This country has consistently delivered stable Governments, in contrast to a number of European systems, which rely on complex coalition arrangements. That is not to suggest that we need to compare systems like that to justify our own, but it is clear that first past the post prevents smaller and more extreme parties from having undue influence, which is a respected element of the UK’s democracy. I refer Members to some of the parties elected to the Israeli Parliament, which has a proportional representational system.

In conclusion, first past the post is not a perfect system, but it is a proven one. It delivers a clear link between constituents and their representatives. It provides voters with identifiable accountability, and it ensures that Governments are formed with a clear mandate from the electorate. I utterly respect the case made by the hon. Member for Richmond Park, and I utterly respect the fact that we are likely to see calls for electoral reform in a future Liberal Democrat manifesto, but I dearly hope the voters reject that option. For the reasons I have set out, I believe first past the post is the system to form strong and stable Governments in the United Kingdom.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for calling the debate, and all hon. Members who have contributed to it. The Government recognise the strength of feeling expressed today regarding our voting system, which after all sits at the heart of our democracy. We welcome open and constructive debate on the voting systems we use and their effectiveness, whether by long standing Members or more recently elected Members. As set out in our manifesto and our strategy for modern and secure elections, the Government believe that strengthening our democracy, upholding the integrity of elections and encouraging voter participation are key priorities and fundamental responsibilities for Government.

Our Representation of the People Bill, which is currently before Parliament, contains a range of measures that will deliver on those commitments. As the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) mentioned, that includes protecting elections against foreign interference. It also means moving towards more automated voter registration, strengthening the resilience of our electoral processes and opening up democratic participation for the next generation by removing barriers to increased participation. Those are substantial electoral reforms, and the Bill represents the boldest and most ambitious change to our democracy for decades. It will help to keep our elections secure, build public trust and encourage more people across society to engage and participate.

Turning to the specific matter of this debate, the Government recognise that different voting systems can be better suited to different types of polls and elections. We believe that the first past the post system works where people are elected to a body, such as a council or Parliament, where there is a mix of representatives from different parties and platforms. Although it is not perfect, the first past the post system provides a robust, efficient and secure way of electing those representatives. It provides for strong and clear local accountability, ensuring a direct link between elected representatives and local constituents, as so ably demonstrated—and dare I say, embodied—by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). The first past the post system is also well understood by voters, and as such we do not want to make any changes just for the sake of it. At present, therefore, the Government have no plans to change the electoral system for UK parliamentary elections or local council elections in England.

For single person executive positions, such as mayors or police and crime commissioners, the same reasoning does not apply, as they exercise their powers as individuals. We therefore believe it is appropriate to use a different voting system—the supplementary vote system—which allows voters to express a first and second preference, and which requires the winning candidate to receive the majority of the votes counted.

In this place, we have recently changed the voting system for metropolitan mayors. Can the Minister comment on whether the voting system for the London Mayor will be changed before the 2028 London mayoral election?

I will write to the hon. Member on that point, but I would say that the supplementary voting system ensures that mayors have a broader base of support from the people they represent.

SV was the system used when the roles of mayors and PCCs were first established, and it was changed to first past the post following the Elections Act 2022. The Government have been consistently clear about our intention to revert the system back to SV. I refer the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr Morrison) to the fact that we have already passed the necessary legislation to change it back in some cases. The change for other mayoral systems and police and crime commissioners will occur in due course, once the relevant measures in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 are commenced.

The forthcoming mayoral election in Greater Manchester will therefore take place under SV, which we have always been clear is the most appropriate system for electing mayors. However, the electoral system we use is just one part of ensuring trust in our democracy. We are also strengthening the postal and proxy voting system to make it more resilient and responsive. We are introducing tougher political finance rules that will give electors more confidence in how political parties are funded and protect UK politics from foreign interference. And we recently launched a democratic engagement fund to provide £2.5 million to increase democratic participation.

Turning to the points raised by other hon. Members, trust in our elections is important to everyone in this House, as referenced by the hon. Members for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns), for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) and for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart). That is central to what we are trying to do in the Representation of the People Bill. The Government recognise that our voting system is of fundamental importance in ensuring trust between elected representatives and the public. Although the first past the post system is not perfect, it is a way of ensuring that elected representatives have a strong connection with their constituents.

My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) talked about disengagement from voting. I would gently suggest that that was not borne out by the recent by election in Makerfield, which saw high levels of participation. In reference to his remarks and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) regarding the devolved Governments, we work closely with them; indeed, I met Ministers from Scotland and Wales yesterday to discuss our proposals for legislation and bringing them forward, so that we can learn and work together across our country.

I think I have covered the comments about trust and involvement. Several hon. Members—including the hon. Members for South Cotswolds, for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) and for North Herefordshire, and my hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh South West and for Falkirk—asked about a national commission on electoral reform. We have no plans to set up such a commission and do not believe that doing so is appropriate or necessary at this time. The important reforms we plan to introduce as part of the Representation of the People Bill will ensure that our democracy remains secure and robust in elections going forward.

To summarise, the Government are content that first past the post is the appropriate system for use in UK parliamentary elections and local council elections in England, and that the supplementary vote system should be used for single executive positions. We currently have no plans to make any further changes to that approach. Although I appreciate that that is disappointing news for many hon. Members in the room, we will continue to welcome discussion and feedback on this important topic. In closing, I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park for securing this important debate, and all hon. Members who have contributed.

Thank you for your chairing the debate, Mr Turner. It is interesting that the majority of voices in the room have argued against first past the post, when all of us are here because we were elected under that system. That shows how even those of us who have—dare I say—benefited from the system recognise its flaws and are here to make the case for change. That is because we operate in the system that first past the post has built, and we all recognise that it forces us to behave in ways we do not feel comfortable with and creates obstacles to achieving the change we want.

I want to pick up on the remarks of the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes). First, I thank him for reminding me that I demonstrably have a better constituency than he does. He made a point about turnout. He was trying to make the case—I am not sure how well it landed—that it is all our fault that turnout is not better because we need to be better politicians. I put it to him that we behave in the way we do because our voting system forces us to do.

I want to particularly mention the hon. Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank), who made the case really powerfully in his speech. I thank all other hon. Members who contributed, but particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Cheadle (Mr Morrison), for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage), for Wokingham (Clive Jones), for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) and for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart). They all made excellent speeches.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) taught us all a great deal more about Edinburgh council than I think we were aware we needed to know, but I am grateful for it. The Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns) commented on the “bearpit” of PMQs and how badly that actually goes down with our constituents, and that point was also picked up by my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds.

This is a topic to which the Liberal Democrats certainly intend to return. I thank the Minister for her comments and hope we will meet again.

Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the use of first past the post in general and local elections.

Sitting suspended.