In the battle to get Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions bills on the statute books, electoral reform for local government was never going to be a strong contender for early action. At this year’s Local Government Association Conference, the Minister for Local Government, Nick Raynsford, was fairly dismissive of its chances at all.
On the ground, the opposing camps are divided between pluralists and traditionalists, modernisers and die-hards, with one side in favour of a reform with many benefits and the other side utilising the ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’ argument.
However, following the groundbreaking local government reforms of the first term – Best Value and the real prospect of directly elected mayors for English towns and cities – the second term Labour government should be looking at electoral reform as a means to both complement these reforms and make local authorities more responsive and focused.
Labour in local government is confronted with hugely differing electoral logic and situations – from urban boroughs where votes are weighed rather than counted to shire counties where Labour barely makes an impact under First Past the Post.
To some it is merely a bizarre but acceptable anomaly that it takes more Labour votes to elect a Labour councillor in Sutton than it does in Lewisham. However, our electoral system can produce wild results that go against the interests of the Labour Party. In authorities that have previously resembled one party states under Labour, recent vacillations in the mood of the electorate have seen Lib Dems take over town halls on unlikely terrain in Sheffield and Hartlepool. Nonetheless, the debate on PR for local government is as likely to be won on the basis of political expediency as it is on the notion of fair and equal votes.
Electoral reform would allow for a genuine allocation of seats on the council according to how people actually voted, with the added benefit of extra scrutiny of Labour’s policies where it is in control and a more robust opposition role where it isn’t.
Like directly elected mayors, electoral reform is not a panacea for all that is amiss with our local authorities. But it could be an important part of Labour’s package of reforms to make local government more relevant and competent, and it therefore deserves consideration rather than immediate dismissal as part of that agenda.
The London Borough of Lewisham, a local authority that has piloted new governance arrangements for over two years with an executive mayor model, will apply to the DTLR to pilot the Additional Member System for its elections, once it has had a referendum on the issue of whether or not to have a directly elected mayor in late October.
We realise that this is something that requires primary legislation but the process, which included consultation with local Labour Party members, reflects the Labour group’s belief that local elections should produce fairer results and give due weight to all political opinions in the community.
It’s good to be in the vanguard of pioneering modernisation and change as a local authority, but this is something, however, that I think should be rolled out to all local authorities, perhaps on a pilot basis to start off with, as it is ultimately in the best interests of both the Labour Party and local democracy itself.