There have been positive noises from government ministers on repairing one part of the damage done to our democracy by the previous government. At the Local Government Association conference this week, government minister Jim McMahon suggested that the upcoming White Paper on Devolution will address the imposition of First Past the Post on Mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners.
White papers are policy documents produced by the Government that set out their proposals for future legislation. So, if it is included, there is a good chance that repairing these elections will be included in future legislation.
What did the last government do to Mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners?
The traditional system for electing Mayors (and Police and Crime Commissioners) in the UK was the Supplementary Vote. The goal of this system was to stop candidates sneaking into town halls on small shares of the vote. With this system, you can cast your vote for the Mayor, then record a second ‘supplementary’ vote. In the event that no candidate wins a majority of the initial vote, the top two candidates go through to a run-off, but rather than make everyone come back to pick from them, they use the supplementary votes. Voters are essentially saying who they would vote for in the run-off if their preferred candidate doesn’t make it through.
It’s a better system than First Past the Post as it means you can’t get a mayor that a big majority actively don’t want. And it’s a system that was backed by a referendum result.
On May 7, 1998, Londoners were asked to not only if it wanted London-wide government, but to endorse the creation of a specific model of local government. The question asked was: “Are you in favour of the Government’s proposals for a Greater London Authority, made up of an elected mayor and a separately elected assembly?”
The proposals were for a London Assembly elected proportionally using the Additional Member System, and a directly elected mayor elected with the Supplementary Vote. Londoners backed the proposal for a Mayor elected via the Supplementary vote – with 72% voting in favour.
With such backing, you might expect the last government to heavily consult on such a change. But they didn’t conduct a consultation to see what voters wanted, nor did they include it in a White Paper, or even include it in the first reading of the bill in parliament. Or the second reading where most of the debate happens, for that matter. The plans were instead sneaked into the Elections Bill at Committee Stage, once the scrutiny of the bill was largely complete.
The damage this change caused
We warned that this change would make it easier for unpopular candidates to become Mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners, and we were right. Mayors were elected on low shares of the vote. Professor Alan Renwick of the UCL Constitution Unit calculated that at least four Police and Crime Commissioners races, probably seven, and conceivably as many as 12 results were won by the Conservatives purely due to the rules change.
That’s 12 Police and Crime Commissioners that wouldn’t have their positions if we had the old, fairer voting system.
We can repair the damage and make it even better
If repairing this damage is included in the government White Paper it will already be subject to more scrutiny than the initial vandalism. The Supplementary Vote is a better system than First Past the Post, but why limit voters to recording just two choices? What if neither get through to the runoff?
The government should let voters write down as many choices as they want, adding third or even fourth choices if they have them. This could be a real opportunity to build an even better democracy. We need electoral systems that work for voters, not ones that voters have to work around.
Do you think that First Past the Post should have a place in our Town Halls?
Add your name to our call to repair our elections