Agenda item

Electoral System

It was moved by Councillor Richard Shaw, second by Councillor Joe Otten, that this Council:-

 (a)      believes that the 'First Past The Post' electoral system, which discriminates against voters for most political parties and promotes a political culture which ignores voters in safe seats, is unfit for purpose;

(b)       regrets that the General Election on 7th May 2015 has produced the least proportional result in our country’s history, with over 5 million votes cast for 2 parties, UKIP and the Green Party, translating into 2 parliamentary seats;

(c)        notes that UKIP had received 3.86m votes and The Green Party had 1.15 million for one MP each, and the Liberal Democrats received 229,000 votes for each MP, compared with an average of 40,000 for every Labour MP, 34,000 for every Conservative MP and just 26,000 for every SNP MP;

(d)       regrets the hugely disproportionate result in Scotland, with the SNP winning 56 of 59 Scottish seats, despite only half of people in Scotland voting for them;

(e)       welcomes the petition by the Electoral Reform Society calling for a fairer, more proportional system to elect MPs, with over 135,000 signatures demonstrating public support for this issue;

(f)        recognises the need to reform British politics to make it more representative and more empowering of our citizens so it commands greater public confidence and engagement;

(g)       notes the need for change has been recognised, with the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly using the hybrid Additional Member System, to produce more proportional results, and with the British elections to the European Parliament using Closed List Proportional Representation;

(h)       notes that the Single Transferrable Vote system is used for local elections in Scotland and in both Northern Irish local elections and the Northern Ireland Assembly;

(i)         therefore, calls for the introduction of the Single Transferrable Vote system:-

(i)      for local elections in England and Wales;

(ii)     for Westminster elections; and

(iii)    for European Parliament elections; and

(j)         directs that a copy of this motion be forwarded to the leaders of all political parties represented in the UK

Whereupon, it was moved by Councillor Geoff Smith, seconded by Councillor Jack Scott, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the deletion of all the words after the words “That this Council” and the addition of the following words:-

(a)       believes that the overriding principle is representative democracy and that there are various valid electoral systems for creating legitimate representatives and governments;

(b)       recognises that, following the 2015 general election, some reasonable concerns have been raised again about the current system; but further recognises that the choice of system should be based on the impact on various criteria over time rather than the outcome of one election; and

(c)        notes that when the British people, including the people of Sheffield, had the opportunity recently to make a change in the 2011 alternative vote referendum, they voted by a considerable margin to keep the current system.

On being put to the vote, the amendment was carried.

The original Motion, as amended, was then put as a Substantive Motion in the following form carried:-

Resolved: that this Council:-

(a)       believes that the overriding principle is representative democracy and that there are various valid electoral systems for creating legitimate representatives and governments;

(b)       recognises that, following the 2015 general election, some reasonable concerns have been raised again about the current system; but further recognises that the choice of system should be based on the impact on various criteria over time rather than the outcome of one election; and

(c)        notes that when the British people, including the people of Sheffield, had the opportunity recently to make a change in the 2011 alternative vote referendum, they voted by a considerable margin to keep the current system.