My Lords, in supporting the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, it would be apposite at this stage to refer your Lordships to the Bill's curious history. It was not included in the list of measures announced in the Queen's Speech following the election of the Labour Government. Therefore, we are entitled to assume that no one proposed altering the voting system for the European Parliament. Then, curiously, it was introduced almost without warning in October last year and had a very confused Second Reading in November. At one stage it appeared that the Home Secretary, who is not known as a zealot for proportional representation, almost indicated that he was prepared to re-examine the method of elections for the European Parliament. I do not know what subsequently happened, but unfortunately no further changes took place so far as concerns the proceedings in the House of Commons. The Bill had its Second Reading in this House in April this year in a very short debate on Maundy Thursday, just before the House rose for the Easter Recess. There was quite a long time before we came to the Committee stage on 24th and 25th June. The Bill passed without amendment through the two-day Committee stage. Here we are in October: a long period between the Committee stage and Report stage. I appreciate, of course, that the Recess took place in between, but nevertheless five months for a short Bill which had not been amended in Committee seems strange. I tend to wonder whether the reason for the long delay was to ensure that no controversy was raised before the Labour Party Conference so that the Bill could pass through that conference.
I am completely opposed to the way the Bill has been slipped through and I am also opposed to the Government's proposals. As I speak from the point of view of someone who served for many years on the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, that may sound strange. But what I am concerned about is that the Bill gives total control for the selection of Labour Party candidates to the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party. It does not involve the membership in any ways as regards the selection of candidates. Of even greater concern is that, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, the Bill abolishes the link between the elected and the electors. That is something which I believe in the long run will prove to be detrimental to democracy itself.
While I am certainly opposed to the Government's closed lists, I am even more opposed to the methods that the Labour Party has adopted to select its candidates. I referred to this, together with my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington, saying that it was almost getting back to the days of communism. The Minister responded, at col. 275 of Hansard for 24th June, when he said:
'My noble friends Lord Evans of Parkside and Lord Bruce of Donington made the point that we may be getting back to the days of communism - democratic centralism, if that is not an oxymoron. The answer there is to have appropriate internal party arrangements for choosing the candidates who go on the list.'
On reflection, I realised that that was a strange reply. The words used were 'appropriate internal ... arrangements', not 'democratic internal arrangements', not even 'traditional internal arrangements'. Indeed, it is well worth asking, to whom or for whom were the arrangements appropriate? They were certainly not appropriate to the individual members of the Labour Party. If the selection and placement on the list of the candidates of the Labour Party had been by the individual party members using a one member, one vote ballot both in the selection of the candidates and placing them on the list, I would have found the proceedings to be a little more acceptable. But in truth the selection process is ruthlessly controlled by the NEC, acting in what can only be described as a central committee fashion.
As I pointed out on the last occasion in Committee and confirm now, the selectors consisted of 11 members appointed by the National Executive Committee. Those 11 members interviewed 160 people who were on the panels of candidates who had been selected by the nine regions in England and in Scotland and Wales. They were all interviewed over one weekend, just before the party conference. There were quite a few complaints from some of the candidates about the relevance of some of the questions they were asked. There was even some suggestion that there had been a complete stitch-up and that the lists had been agreed before the candidates were interviewed. I have not the faintest idea whether there is any truth in relation to those comments.
However, there was pointed out in the reports to which I referred the dangers of some people being put on a regional list when they were not residents or members of that region. On 24th June I said:
'I wish to address a point directly to my noble friend the Minister. I am concerned about the danger of disillusionment among party members in relation to having candidates imposed on their regions.' [Official Report, 24/6/98; col. 314.]
There are a number of strange anomalies in those lists and I shall refer to only three. But it is an indication of the concern which has been expressed by many members of the Labour Party. A Manchester MEP has been selected as the number one candidate for the south-west region. A Merseyside MEP has been selected as the number three candidate for Yorkshire. A Cheshire MEP has been selected as the number three candidate in Wales. That will mean that all those candidates will be elected to the European Parliament.
I know that all those men are excellent. The chances are that others who may find themselves in similar positions may also be excellent men and women. But they were not selected by the members of that region. They would be in a much stronger position if they had been selected by the members of that region.
What I also find of great concern is that acceptance of the one member, one vote rule within the party was dropped by New Labour at the first series of elections after the general election. I remind your Lordships that the struggle to introduce one member, one vote in the Labour Party took almost 10 years before it came to fruition. On behalf of the National Executive Committee, I moved the first resolution to introduce selection of parliamentary candidates by one member, one vote at the 1984 conference in Blackpool. It was not until 1993 that the party finally accepted that all parliamentary candidates would be selected on the basis of one member, one vote.
Of course, the great raison d'être for the introduction of one member, one vote was that it would introduce widespread democracy within the party, it would give the party members a voice and a vote in the selection of their candidates and it would be a wonderful message to give to people who were party supporters to join the party. It was used for the 1994 European elections and for the last general election. This is the first election since then, and it has now apparently been dropped. Perhaps that is because the OMOV method selects too many horny-handed sons of toil and not enough of the meritocrats who seem to find favour in certain sections of the party.
One argument which was used to defend the closed lists is that it was said that more women and black candidates would be elected. What are the facts? Currently there are 13 women MEPs and one black Labour MEP. The party now boasts, with the new lists, that there will be 34 women and six black candidates. That sounds like a huge increase. However, on examining the lists we find that the realistic chances of election mean that there will be 13 women and one black candidate who will almost certainly be elected. It does not sound much of an advance on the current situation.
The other point that should be made is that when the Bill receives its Third Reading some time later this month, if it is not amended, it will have taken almost 12 months to pass through the parliamentary process. When the Government were first challenged about the reasons for introducing the closed lists and dropping the OMOV method of selecting Labour Party candidates, it was claimed that there was insufficient time to use the party's traditional methods to select the candidates. The party has selected all its candidates; it has placed them on the list. The Bill has not reached the statute book yet and the elections will not take place for another eight months. It seems to me that there was all the time in the world to use the party's method of one member, one vote to select the candidates.
The real reason for the selection method is, frankly, that those who now manage New Labour are determined to exercise control over those who are selected as candidates and, more important, those who will not be candidates. What can best be said about it is that the party members apparently cannot now be trusted to select the candidates who are required and the electors will not be trusted to select the Members of Parliament from the candidates. The list is now fixed. The electorate will have one vote in those elections if the Government's methods are adopted.
I pointed out in Committee, and repeat now, that that is bad enough in relation to those on official party lists. But when there are Independents standing - and in all the elections we have ever had there have always been people standing as Independents - it becomes an outrage. If, say there are 10 Independents for the 10 seats available in the north west region all the elector will be able to do is cast one vote for one Independent. That vote will only carry the value of one candidate whereas if the elector votes for 10 Conservative candidates, 10 Liberal Democrat candidates or 10 Labour candidates, he then gets 10 for his vote. That is a gross unfairness in regard to how the election is conducted.
The amendment throws challenges to the Conservatives and to the Liberal Democrats, because the Conservatives have made it absolutely clear that they are opposed to any form of proportional representation. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, to whom I listened with great interest, referred to the Leader of the Conservative Party having made clear at Bournemouth that he was opposed to any form of proportional representation. However, all we have on offer in the Bill is this strange form of election which cannot by any stretch of the imagination be described as proportional representation.
At their conference the Liberal Democrats made it clear that when Lord Jenkins's committee reports they do not want to see any watered down version. They want full and proper proportional representation, and so I suggest that today they support the amendment; otherwise we might find that a lot of people who were in support of proportional representation will not be too interested in how they perform after Lord Jenkins's report. I say to the House that my great concern is that there has been a long struggle for proportional representation in this country. I believe that if this method is adopted for these elections, then the chances are that no one in future will offer much support for PR in any other elections. I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alton.