« Regionally speaking | Main | Kiwi system bears fruit »
November 13, 2008
Speaker’s Conference - launch roundup
A historic and under-reported moment happened last night in the Commons. For the first time in over 30 years, and only the sixth since the 19th Century, a Speaker’s Conference is being established. Such key subjects as women’s right to vote have been looked at in previous ones.
This Conference will look at issues to do with diversity in the Commons and how to make Parliament more representative. Formally, the Conference has been asked to:
"Consider, and make recommendations for rectifying, the disparity between the representation of women and ethnic minorities in the House of Commons and their representation in the UK population at large; and to consider such other matters as might, by agreement, be referred for consideration."
As The Guardian suggests:
“The conference could debate such issues as voting systems, parties' selection of candidates, Commons working hours, disabled access to parliament, and the culture of parliament. It will be run like a select committee and consist of 17 MPs from across the parties.‿
In the Commons debate (and as reported on the BBC website) Harriet Harman spoke movingly that:
“Society has changed and the House needs to change too. … To reflect our population we need more than four times more Black and Asian MPs...The missing faces on the green benches are the missing voices in this chamber."
Harman told The Guardian:
"Obama said famously 'yes we can'. Well, this is Westminster saying 'yes we can'. If parliament votes for this, it is voting to change itself and to recognise that parliament has a problem. Nothing is off-limits. It is potentially a very radical, historic decision - it moves the issue right up the agenda, and puts something that used to be dismissed as political correctness right to the centre of the political agenda. If the Commons is not representative, it is nothing. This is about parliament saying 'we are not OK to go on as we are'. If people see the Commons as a narrow and self-serving elite ... then the Commons has no legitimacy."
Sunder Katwala sat in on the Commons debate and noted these contribitions from other MPs:
"The Speaker’s Conference will address the issue of disabled representation alongside gender and ethnicity, while Harman, Emily Thornberry and John Bercow all emphasised the importance of having more openly gay and lesbian MPs in the House.
Fiona MacTaggart was among those to emphasise that this was not simply an issue of fairness to individuals from under-represented groups – but a matter of better government. And Harman had noted that a House without any Asian women MPs at all would rightly feel ill equipped to debate issues such as controversy over the wearing of the veil.
It will be up to the Speaker’s Conference as to how far its remit to consider ‘associated matters’ should extend. Tony Wright, MP for Cannock Chase, made an effective plea for class to be part of the equation, especially for a “party was born in order to bring working-class people into political life‿ and for the broader issue of breaking up an exclusive “political class‿ to be part of the discussion too.
Simon Hughes MP made an excellent speech too, in which he intelligently and persuasively makes the case for the Conference to examine all relevant aspects, including the effect of the voting system:
“I know that people bristle when this is mentioned, but we have to look at the fact that our electoral system militates against representativeness. I am not a theological purist for the single transferable vote. That is not where I come from, but I know that a proportional system of election such as operates in other Parliaments in this country and elsewhere provides a better balance of representation. That has to be on the agenda for us to discuss, and it is clearly included in the remit of the motion.
I hope that no one will have any no-go areas in this debate. I hope that all of us will go into it with open minds and be willing to look at all options. I believe that the wish of the Leader of the House and of many of the rest of us is that, when we finish our duties in this place, we leave it as somewhere that looks, feels and sounds like Britain. I think that Parliament will make much better decisions as a result, because the mix that is Britain will be contributing to them.‿
The Electoral Reform Society have been on the ball, watching developments closely and putting out several <u>press releases.
“We can only welcome the spirit in which MPs discussed the proposed Speaker’s Conference. Members who spoke, whatever their parties, realised that the Commons is not representative of British society. But what are they going to do about it? Neither hand-wringing nor warm words are going to make our politics truly representative. If we are to have a parliament that better reflects society, we need a voting system that makes that possible. Of course we want to see the Speaker’s Conference come up with proposals on how we can get a wider range of people involved in politics, and we are ready to support any steps along that road. But creating a new and better political culture will be difficult with a winner-takes-all voting system that leads to ya-boo politics that alienates the very people we need to involve. We need to know that this Conference will have both the freedom to explore genuinely radical solutions to fundamental problems, and the time and commitment to see their conclusions put into effect.‿
Posted by malcolmclark on November 13, 2008
Comments
The fact that Norway leads the way in eliminating sex discrimination was ths subject of an article in yesterday’s Guardian on which I commented in the following terms:-
"It is no coincidence that Norway - like all the Scandinavian countries - has progressed further than the UK and France towards sex equality. They all have representative electoral systems so that their parliaments always represent what the people have voted for.
Britain is by far the lowest; and it is not surprising to find also that it has the worst possible electoral system, which always yields a minority elective dictatorship with often huge parliamentary majorities but a minority vote (in the UK at present we have a government with a mere 35% of the vote and the support of a mere 21% of the total electorate, and yet an overall phoney unrepresentative majority of 65 seats which enables it to ram its policies down the throats of the majority whatever the latter’s views. (Contrast this wih the situation in Scotland where Salmond also heads a minority government but would be thrown out if he tried to implement his pet policy - independence)
Moreover the system ensures that we always have a basically reactionary government, because whichever of the two Tweedle Dum /Tweedle Dee parties is in government the reactionaries are essentially always in power. This is because elections are lost and won by the floating voters in the marginal seats who get their ideas from the Sun and the Mail; and even if a nominally progressive party is in power it is always - in framing policy - looking over its shoulder at what Murdoch will be saying. Hence we have all three main parties strutting their stuff to propitiate Murdoch in the marginal seats, to the complete negelect incidentally of the safe seats. (It’s called "triangulation")
Rule by Murdoch is an unlikely backgrond for the development of sex equality which we shall never get until women’s views are fairly represented in parliament. There was hope of electoral reform in 1997 but NEW Labour tribalists cynically reneged on their manifesto promises.
Despite the above, just watch on this thread for all the weary old ignorant arguments for the retention of FPTP being dragged up! "
Posted by: Joe Patterson at November 14, 2008 11:30 AM
We're democrats and believe in free speech, but we're also committed to civil and rational debate. We reserve the right to delete material posted to our site, but we hope and expect to exercise this right rarely if at all.
