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Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 11 February 2026

Debate

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Contribution

My Lords, I will speak a little about the proposals to change to a supplementary vote. I have some memories of how this came to be, since I was involved between 1996 and 1998 in some of the discussions between the Liberal Democrats and the then Labour Government about voting systems. The Labour Cabinet was divided on the subject; Jack Straw was one of the strongest opponents of any change in the electoral system and the most he was prepared to accept was the sort of bastard form of half way towards an alternative vote, which is the supplementary vote. It is neither one thing nor the other. Now that we are in a multiparty system, we have to face up to the implications of where we are. For most of the last year, we have had five parties in England getting between 10% and 30% of the vote and no party getting over 30% of the vote. The elected Mayor of the West of England received 25% of the vote to become mayor. I think the record for the lowest percentage of the vote won by a winning candidate happened in a Cornish local by-election, in which the Liberal candidate was victorious with 19.5% of the vote in a six-party contest.

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