2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum
The United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, also known as the UK-wide referendum on the Parliamentary voting system, was held on Thursday 5 May 2011 in the United Kingdom to choose the method of electing MPs at subsequent general elections. It occurred as a provision of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement drawn up in 2010 and also indirectly in the aftermath of the 2009 expenses scandal. It operated under the provisions of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 and was the first national referendum to be held under provisions laid out in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Many local elections were also held on this day.
The referendum concerned whether to replace the present "first-past-the-post" system with the "alternative vote" method and was the first national referendum to be held across the whole of the United Kingdom in the 21st century. The proposal to introduce AV was rejected by 67.9% of voters on a national turnout of 42%. The failure of the referendum was considered a humiliating setback for Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who had acquiesced to the Conservative offer of a referendum on AV rather than proportional representation as part of the coalition agreement. The referendum was linked to the ongoing decline of his popularity and that of the Liberal Democrats in general.
This was only the second UK-wide referendum to be held and the first of such to be overseen by the Electoral Commission. It is to date the only UK-wide referendum to be held on an issue not related to the European Communities or the European Union, and is also the first to have been not merely consultative: it committed the government to give effect to its decision.
All registered electors over 18 – including members of the House of Lords – were entitled to take part. On a turnout of 42.2 percent, 68 percent voted "No" and 32 percent voted "Yes". Ten of the 440 local voting areas recorded "Yes" votes above 50 per cent: four were Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh Central and Glasgow Kelvin, with the remaining six being in London.
History
Historical context
The alternative vote and the single transferable vote for the House of Commons were debated in Parliament several times between 1917 and 1931, and came close to being adopted. Both the Liberals and Labour at various times supported a change from non-transferable voting to AV or STV in one-, two- and three-member constituencies. STV was adopted for university seats. Both AV and STV involve voters rank-ordering preferences and using ranked votes. However, STV uses multi-member constituencies and is considered to be a form of proportional representation, while AV uses single-member constituencies and is not a form of PR.In 1950, all constituencies became single-member and all votes non-transferable. From then until 2010, the Labour and Conservative parties, the two parties who formed each government of the United Kingdom normally by virtue of an overall majority in the Commons, always voted down proposals for moving away from this uniform first-past-the-post voting system for the Commons. Other voting systems were introduced for various other British elections. STV was reintroduced in Northern Ireland and list-PR introduced for European elections except in Northern Ireland.
Whilst out of power, the Labour Party set up a working group to examine electoral reform. The resulting Plant Commission reported in 1993 and recommended the adoption, for elections to the Commons, of the supplementary vote, the system used to elect the Mayor of London. Labour's 1997 manifesto committed the party to a referendum on the voting system for the Commons and to setting up an independent commission to recommend a proportional alternative to FPTP to be put in that referendum.
After winning the 1997 general election, the new Labour government consequently set up the Jenkins Commission into electoral reform, supported by the Liberal Democrats, the third party in British politics in recent years and long supporters of proportional representation. The commission reported in September 1998 and proposed the novel alternative vote top-up or AV+ system. Having been tasked to meet a "requirement for broad proportionality", the Commission rejected both FPTP, as the status quo, and AV as options. It pointed out that "the single-member constituency is not an inherent part of the British parliamentary tradition. It was unusual until 1885...Until most seats were two-member...". Jenkins rejected AV because "so far from doing much to relieve disproportionality, it is capable of substantially adding to it". AV was also described as "disturbingly unpredictable" and "unacceptably unfair".
However, legislation for a referendum was not put forward. Proportional systems were introduced for the new Scottish Parliament and Welsh and London Assemblies, and the supplementary vote was introduced for mayoral elections. With House of Lords reform in 1999, AV was introduced to elect replacements for the remaining 92 hereditary peers who sit in the Lords.
At the next general election in 2001, Labour's manifesto stated that the party would review the experience of the new systems and the Jenkins report, to assess the possibility of changes to the Commons, which would still be subject to a referendum. Electoral reform in the Commons remained at a standstill, although in the Scottish Parliament, a coalition of Labour and the Liberal Democrats introduced STV for local elections in Scotland.
Before 2010 general election
In February 2010, the Labour government used its majority to pass an amendment to its Constitutional Reform Bill to include a referendum on the introduction of AV to be held in the next Parliament, citing a desire to restore trust in Parliament in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal. A Liberal Democrat amendment to hold the referendum earlier, and on STV, was defeated by 476 votes to 69. There was insufficient time remaining in the term of that Parliament for the Bill to become law before Parliament was dissolved; and so the move was dismissed by several Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs as a political manoeuvre.In the ensuing 2010 general election campaign, the Labour manifesto supported the introduction of AV via a referendum, to "ensure that every MP is supported by the majority of their constituents voting at each election". The Liberal Democrats argued for proportional representation, preferably by single transferable vote, and the Conservatives argued for the retention of FPTP. Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats proposed reducing the number of MPs, while the Conservative Party argued for more equal sized constituencies.
Election outcome to Queen's Speech
The 2010 UK general election held on 6 May resulted in a hung parliament, the first since 1974, leading to a period of negotiations. Honouring a pre-election pledge, the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg entered into negotiations with the Conservatives as the party who had won most votes and most seats. William Hague offered the Liberal Democrats a referendum on the alternative vote as part of a "final offer" in the Conservatives' negotiations for a proposed "full and proper" coalition between the two parties. Hague and Conservative leader David Cameron said that this was in response to Labour offering the Liberal Democrats the alternative vote without a referendum, although it later emerged that Labour had not made such an offer. Negotiations between the Liberal Democrats and Labour quickly ended. On 11 May 2010, Prime Minister Gordon Brown stepped down, followed by the establishment of a full coalition government between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. David Cameron became Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister.The initial Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement, dated 11 May 2010, detailed the issues which had been agreed between the two parties before they committed to entering into coalition. On the issue of an electoral reform referendum, it stated:
Following the agreement between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, with the new coalition government now formed, a commitment to the referendum was included in the coalition government's Queen's Speech on 25 May 2010 as the Parliamentary Reform Bill, although with no date set for the referendum.
The coalition agreement committed both parties in the government to "whip" their Parliamentary parties in both the House of Commons and House of Lords to support the bill, thereby ensuring that it could reasonably be expected to be passed into law due to the simple majority in the Commons of the combined Conservative – Liberal Democrat voting bloc. The Lords can only delay, rather than block, a Bill passed by the Commons.
Passage through Parliament
According to The Guardian, reporting after the Queen's Speech, unnamed pro-referendum Cabinet members were believed to want the referendum held on 5 May 2011, to coincide with elections to the Scottish parliament, the Welsh assembly and many English local councils. Nick Clegg's prior hope of a referendum as early as October 2010 was considered unrealistic due to the parliamentary programme announced in the speech.On 5 July 2010, Clegg announced the detailed plans for the Parliamentary Reform Bill in a statement to the House of Commons, as part of the wider package of voting and election reforms set out in the coalition agreement, including setting the referendum date as 5 May 2011. In addition to a referendum on AV, the reform bill also included the other coalition measures of reducing and resizing the Westminster parliamentary constituencies, introducing fixed-term parliaments and setting the date of the next general election as 7 May 2015, changing the voting threshold for early dissolution of parliament to 55%, and providing for the recall of MPs by their constituents.
The plans to hold the vote on 5 May faced criticism from some Conservative MPs as distorting the result because turnout was predicted to be higher in those places where local elections were also held. It also faced criticism from Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs for the effects it would have on their devolved elections on the same day, while Clegg himself faced further criticism from Labour, and implied lessening support from Liberal Democrat MPs, for backing down on earlier Liberal Democrat positions on proportional representation. Clegg defended the date, stating the referendum question was simple and that it would save £17m in costs. Over 45 MPs, mostly Conservatives, signed a motion calling for the date to be moved. In September 2010, Ian Davidson MP, chairman of the Commons Scottish affairs select committee, stated after consultation with the Scottish Parliament that there was "unanimous" opposition among Members of the Scottish Parliament to the referendum date, following the "chaos" of the combined 2007 Scottish parliament and council elections.
On 22 July 2010, the proposal for fixed-term parliaments was put before parliament as the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, while the proposals for the AV referendum, change in dissolution arrangements and equalising constituencies were put forward in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, which accordingly had three parts: Part 1, Voting system for parliamentary elections; Part 2, Parliamentary constituencies; and Part 3, Miscellaneous and general. The Bill contained the text of a proposed referendum question.
The original proposed question in English was:
In Welsh:
permitting a simple YES / NO answer.
This wording was criticised by the Electoral Commission, saying that "particularly those with lower levels of education or literacy, found the question hard work and did not understand it". The Electoral Commission recommended a changed wording to make the issue easier to understand, and the government subsequently amended the Bill to bring it into line with the Electoral Commission's recommendations.
The Bill passed an interim vote in the Commons on 7 September 2010 by 328 votes to 269.
An amendment proposed in the Lords by Lord Rooker to require a minimum turn-out of 40% for the referendum to be valid was supported by Labour, a majority of cross-benchers and ten rebel Conservatives, and was passed by one vote. Labour's 2010 AV referendum proposal had not included such a threshold and they were criticised for seeking to impose one for this referendum, while the 2011 Welsh referendum, held under a Bill passed by Labour, also had no threshold. In the latter hours of debate, a "game" of parliamentary ping-pong saw the Commons overturning the threshold amendment before it was reimposed by the Lords, and then removed again.
After some compromises between the two Houses on amendments, the Bill was passed into law on 16 February 2011.