Nick Clegg, the United Kingdom coalition government’s Deputy Prime Minister, announced details of the proposals for the reform of Parliament on 5 July 2010. The proposals had previously been outlined in the Queen’s Speech and the plans announced by Mr Clegg in a statement to the House of Commons differed in some areas from these proposals.
Details of Parliamentary and Electoral Reform
The Deputy Prime Minister’s statement to the Commons covered a number of areas. He addressed the issues of fixed term parliaments; reduction of the number of MPs to be elected to Parliament; setting of new parliamentary boundaries; and he confirmed the date for a referendum on a possible change to the voting system.
The most significant point of the statement was the widely-expected confirmation that the electorate would be offered the chance to choose whether or not to opt for a new voting system. Mr Clegg said that the referendum would ask voters to give a straight 'yes' or no' to the alternative vote system. If the answer is no the present first-past-the-post system will be retained. The referendum will take place on 5 May 2011.
Mr Clegg confirmed that the Prime Minister would no longer have the power to set the date of an election and that in future five-year fixed-term parliaments would be introduced. On this basis, the date of the UK’s next general election would be 7 May 2015. Dissolution of Parliament prior to the fixed term would be possible but would require a parliamentary majority of two-thirds, rather than the 55% which had previously been proposed.
In his statement, the Deputy Prime Minister also indicated that the number of MPs would be cut from 650 to 600 – a lower reduction than had been expected, with the Conservatives’ manifesto originally having targeted a reduction of 10%. Constituency boundaries will be withdrawn before the 2015 election so as to equalise the number voters, with two exceptions, the geographically separate constituencies of the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland.
Possible Impacts of the Statement on Parliamentary Reform
The Deputy Prime Minster’s statement contained no unexpected announcements, although the main issue is likely to be the option for electoral reform, which matches the position of neither of the coalition parties as set out in their election manifestos. The Liberal Democrats had committed themselves to full proportional representation, to which the Conservatives were opposed. Electoral reform had earleir proved a thorny issue in the formation of the coalition.
The compromise sets the coalition members against one another as the Liberal Democrats will campaign in favour of a change to an alternative vote while the Conservatives will campaign against it. Earlier, it was confirmed that the Prime Minister will be campaigning against a change in the voting system, despit eearlier speculation that he would ot become involved (Daily Telegraph, 2 July 2010).
The choice of date for the vote, which had been widely leaked, has also caused some controversy. The date will coincide with local elections in England and with elections for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. This has given rise to some concerns that the referendum might be overlooked as voters will be focussing on other issues (Sunday Express, 4 July 2010) although critics of the proposals replying to Mr Clegg's statement stressed that this was not the case (Guardian, politics live blog).
Most criticism of the chosen date focuses on the issue of whether or not the response to the vote will be distorted by an expected higher turnout in areas where voters are accustomed to some form of proportional representation. Although Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly members are not elected by the alternative vote, both systems use a mixed system with a proportional element.
A vote to change the electoral system, while it would not bring in a truly proportional system, would have the effect of changing the balance of politics away from the larger parties towards the smaller ones. The major impact of this, politically speaking, is likely to be that coalition governments such as that currently in place in the UK become more common as representation is more widely spread.
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