Siân Berry

I associate myself with the comments of many other hon. Members today, and thank the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) for introducing the debate. This debate comes at a crucial time. We are in a world characterised by democratic decline and falling trust in institutions. Without public belief in making change through democratic debate, political pluralism and representation from people who listen to them, we have a society vulnerable to exploitation by populist division and tyranny. First past the post adds to these risks. Those who seek to distort our national conversation from outside, using money and influence to pursue their own agenda, can see dangled in front of them the huge prize of what is virtually absolute power if they can achieve the slimmest of margins to reach first place in a volatile system. A two-party system, which first past the post assumes, is, in fact, long out of date. As other hon. Members have said, the most recent UK general election was the most disproportionate on record. Not only did 58% of voters not receive an elected official of their choosing, but the election was one of the most disproportionate elections to a primary chamber anywhere in the world. People are voting in historic numbers for parties other than the Conservatives and Labour, representing different views across the political spectrum and bringing in points of view from across our island’s different nations, yet this Parliament does not come close to correctly reflecting that shift. We have a Parliament that is highly misrepresentative of the public’s preferences and a Government with a huge majority but only 33.7% of people’s preferences. That seems unbalanced and unrepresentative to me. I am not here to make arguments that are only in my own self-interest. Proportionality is not the goal here; a better politics is. It is not just parties, but minority groups and the interests of groups who might be ignored, face discrimination or are geographically spread out, and whose interests do not often get a fair look-in when a large majority in this House is elected by only swing voters in marginal constituencies. Like other Members from different parties, I was for many years a member of the London Assembly, elected under PR to scrutinise and hold to account a Mayor elected within a modified alternative vote system. I came here to this building to give evidence to the relevant all-party parliamentary group of the time in that capacity. I talked about how, as a London-wide member, working alongside constituency Members, my role was often to listen to groups who were not necessarily getting the ear of their constituency Member or the Mayor, and who were trying to highlight issues that were happening to people like them in pockets all around London.