Percentage Proportional Representation (Revised 2015)

The UK General election 2015 gave a result that was a surprise to many, even the exit poll differed wildly from all previous polls. The Conservatives won a majority with just over 30% of the national votes, while the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) got 12% of the vote but only one seat in Parliament. Under proportional representation UKIP should have had 81 seats. I mention these two parties merely to highlight the problem of First Past The Post (FPTP). The disparity is such that there is now greater interest among the electorate to consider PR again.

In the previous parliament there was a referendum of FPTP against the Alternative Vote (AV), which was resoundingly defeated. Some people took this to mean that the electorate preferred FPTP while others took the view that many did not like AV either. Also it has to be pointed out that AV is not a PR system; it is a preference system. So really we have not had a referendum on a PR system at all. Moreover, I think it is only fair that we the people get to choose what to put up against FPTP rather than the MPs, who will always have a vested interest in offering us the most unattractive option to their FPTP preference.

So important is the issue that one young man, Owen Winter, from the generation that will be eligible to vote in the 2020 election has taken a petition to Downing Street and set up a debate on a social network to scrutinise the alternative options to FPTP. It was here that, with the help and candour of some members in this group, I resurrected an idea for PR in the hope that somehow the group could take out the bad bits of my original idea and put in some good bits. This presentation is version 2 of the original idea (and much shorter) thanks to their input.

Percentage Proportional Representation (PPR) aims to give the electorate a more proportionate representation in parliament without losing the local constituency links where possible. Unlike FPTP it does not ignore the representative wishes of those who did not vote for a winner in a constituency. The nearest system to PPR (revised) is the Additional Member System (AMS), so it may be worth using AMS as a comparison rather than the others.

The main differences between PPR and AMS is twofold:

• PPR focuses the votes always from the constituencies where the support is greatest, rather than FPTP and then an arbitrary list of preference candidates picked by political parties. It does this by looking at the second place candidates from the strongest level of support first. The system therefore listens to the electorates wishes rather than the political party.

• PPR aims to average out the votes so that, nationally, we get as close to one electorate one vote as we can. So where winning MPs did not win by at least the average number of votes for an MP, the national vote reflects this proportionately. This way virtually every single vote will count. So where a local constituency link cannot be achieved, perhaps a regional link is possible and finally a national link where only one MP can be achieved proportionately.

In order for this to work the constituencies would have to be redrawn from 650 to 325. The winner of each constituency is automatically elected as an MP but the number of votes received will go into a pot until all votes are counted. Let us say, for example that in Barnsley the winning MP gets 70,000 votes but proportionately (total votes cast divided by 650 MPs) only needs 50,000, the figure of 20,000 could be used to add a further MP. If, on the other hand the winning MP in Birmingham gets 40,000 votes and the average votes cast is 50,000, that MP would benefit from Barnsley’s extras. The idea is that, proportionally, all votes count and a national proportionality is maintained as close as possible without losing local constituency links. This is a significant departure from FPTP, where once a winner is declared all other votes are ‘wasted’. With PPR no vote is wasted, even spoilt votes are counted to determine the number of national votes cast (perhaps giving a small but significant voice to the ‘None of The Above’ campaigners).

Unlike AMS, PPR then looks at second placed candidates, so that where local representation is highest among the second placed candidates it will be the amount of votes that decides who becomes MP rather than resorting to a preferred list. This way the candidates with the highest proportion of second place votes also have the opportunity to become an MP keep constituency links. In effect the size of the constituency, although doubled would generally be shared by two MPs. This may have the fortunate consequence of creating some healthy competition between local MPs (parties) where local issues are concerned.

Some of the smaller parties may not field as many candidates. Regional parties like Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party (SNP) will only field candidates in their region. But as the election for the UK is nationwide, the same proportionality must stay. Having said that, in 2015 the SNP won in 56 constituencies, so it is possible that the regional votes cast could count lower than the national average; so one may have to consider regional boundaries here to balance geographical lines with the level of voters in one constituency. Under direct PR it should be noted that SNP would have got around the number of seats they did anyway.

So what is at issue here is the attempt to maintain as much as possible the local links with those who represent the electorate. Single issue candidates will either win or lose. And if the Monster Raving Loony party, or more seriously the more extreme right or left wing parties manages a single candidate, then we know something is seriously wrong with our political situation but it WILL be representative.

The averaging-out of the votes after the winning candidates have been established will also mean that MPs are able to vote in the house of commons with an equal share of the electorate’s will. In short it becomes more of one electorate one vote rather than one MP one vote. By maintaining the strongest level of votes to a particular party or candidate, the balance of MPs representative in parliament can be selected from the highest level of constituency support. AMS would have political parties select candidates from a list, which loses local constituency links.

In the first draft of this idea, I used the Barnsley Central. So let’s look at what happened and then calculate how PPR would be a fairer system.

BARNSLEY, CENTRAL
Election	Electors	T'out		Candidate	Party	Votes		%	Ch.%
2001	60,086	45.8		E.E. Illsley A.W. Hartley I.A. McCord H. Rajch	Lab L Dem C SA	19,181 4,051 3,608 703 27543		69.6 14.7 13.1 2.6	-7.4 +5.2 +

E Ilsley wins clearly with 19,181 out of 27543 votes. The national turnout for this election was 26,367,383

Divide this figure by 650 and the answer is 40565, which means that the constituency is nowhere near the proportionate size to have an equal voice in parliament. In terms of demographics if one considers that London holds one fifth of the population this would place 130 out of 650 seats in London. The United Sates has a similar disparity between geography versus populace.

So if, in Barnsley Central, under PPR, E.Illsley wins his constituency contest, Second placed A.W. Hartley has only 14.7% of the vote. So if A.W Hartley had the most 2nd place votes in the entire country, he would go to the top of the Lib Dem list to be elected as an MP if under proportional representation there were sufficient votes to justify it. Where possible the top up votes would come from surrounding regional votes, which means that the second place candidates are most likely to represent a wider geographical area but be as close to local constituency links as the level of support allows.

Cheadle 2001 is a good example of why second places candidates may also become MPs.

CHEADLE
Election	Electors	T'out		Candidate	Party	Votes		%	Ch.%
2001	69,001	63.2		Mrs. P. Calton S.R. Day H. Dawber V.L. Cavanagh	L Dem C Lab UKIP	18,477 18,444 6,086 599 33	*	42.4 42.3 13.9 1.4 0.1	+4.7 -1.4 -

With only a few seats separating first from second. S.R. Day has a legitimate stake in being a top list second candidate for where his supporters are strong.  Neither H. Dawber or V.L. Cavanagh are likely to be high up on the PR list but their votes would count to either topping up the votes for winning candidates who did not make the average (another important departure from AMS) or be added towards a regional or even national total.

So let’s argue that UKIP, who got 599 votes in Cheadle, managed to build sufficient support throughout the country that meant they had the average 40565 votes. Here is an opportunity for UKIP to put forward one MP, even though there is no constituency link.

I re-emphasise the constituency link because AMS does not offer this beyond the FPTP winning candidate. If it calculates the remaining PR with the national votes cast then PPR would be in agreement, because if we maintain the FPTP winning MP, there has to at the very least be a proportional justification for their election. If it were discovered that, for example, the level of first place MPs did not meet the proportional average, one might have to question whether it is right to keep that disparity for the sake of local constituency links or displace the lowest winning candidate. I think on balance the former, while not ideal, is probably the more pragmatic of solutions.

Once again I am happy for people to take the system and pull it apart until there are no reasons to do so.