The margin of two votes has been significant several times in Lib Dem history – winning Winchester in May 1997, heartbreakingly not taking back North East Fife by two votes in 2017. Yesterday, we won a surprise vote in Parliament on the first stage of a Ten Minute Rule Bill on changing the electoral system for Westminster and English local government elections to Proportional Representation which was introduced by our Sarah Olney. Normally what happens with these Bills is that MPs hear the speech. The MP proposing the measure then does a carefully choreographed approach to the Speaker and hands it over to be buried with loads of other Bills on some sitting Friday months in the future. But the Tories forced a vote to try to kill it without, it seems, doing their sums first.

Interestingly more Labour MPs voted for it than voted against.

This Bill doesn’t have a hope in hell of becoming law as Keir Starmer has said repeatedly that Labour opposes PR, despite the wishes of many of its members. However, between now and its second reading on 24th January, we can talk up the benefits of PR. For me, it’s about giving people the Parliament they ask for.

From the Guardian:

As well as 62 Lib Dem MPs, 59 Labour backbenchers voted for Tuesday’s bill, including a number of those first elected in 2024. Last month it emerged that dozens of Labour MPs from the 2024 intake had signed up to a parliamentary group calling for the UK to move to a PR system.

Labour’s 2022 annual conference voted overwhelmingly for the party to back a proportional system, after trade unions that had blocked previous motions swung behind the idea. However, while Keir Starmer has previously expressed at least some support for electoral reform, his leadership team has ruled out any immediate change, at least in the first term of a Labour government.

In Tuesday’s vote, 50 Labour MPs opposed the motion, indicating the continued lack of agreement on the issue. None of the government frontbench took part in the vote. All of the Conservatives who voted, 78 of them, opposed the idea, including some frontbenchers.

After the vote, Sarah Olney said:

This is a historic day in the fight for fairer votes and I am grateful to all the MPs who backed it.

Trust in our political system is broken following years of the Conservative Party riding roughshod over standards in public life.

Fixing our broken electoral system, introducing fair votes, and making sure everyones’ voice matters is the best way to rebuild this trust.

Today, as we have done for a century, Liberal Democrats are leading the fight for fair votes and making sure that no one can be ignored in our democracy.

The government must now listen to the will of the House, make time for the legislation and make fairer a votes a reality and we will be holding their feet to the fire to make this happen.

Her speech in favour of her bill is below:

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to introduce a system of proportional representation for parliamentary elections and for local government elections in England; and for connected purposes.

We are experiencing an unprecedented political moment in this country. Our most recent general election, in July this year, returned a Government with the second biggest majority of seats of any Government since the second world war, but on the lowest share of the vote ever recorded for a winning party. The first-past-the-post voting system used in UK parliamentary elections has delivered two thirds of the seats in the House of Commons to the Labour party, which attracted just one third of the votes cast. Thanks to first past the post, nearly 60% of people who voted in the general election in July are not represented in Parliament by the candidate that they voted for. This is the most disproportionate election result that this country has ever seen.

We are also seeing record levels of disillusionment with the political process, with citizens becoming increasingly disengaged. This is reflected in the fact that turnout in the 2024 general election was the second lowest since 1918, at just under 60%. Over 40% of registered voters in the UK thought so little of the political process that they did not think it worth expressing a preference for one candidate over another.

There are many urgent and pressing challenges facing the UK today, but it is essential that the vast majority of its citizens actively support the mechanisms by which the decisions are made to address them. Increasing levels of disengagement threaten our ability to respond both to immediate challenges and to longer-term issues.

The Liberal Democrats believe—and have always believed—that a fair voting system is an essential bedrock of a functioning democracy. Democracy has proved to be the most effective and enduring governing system because it relies on a broad base of support across the population. A faulty voting system delivering a majority Government on a minority vote undermines democracy and its ability to deliver effective government. That is why I am presenting this ten-minute rule Bill. In the face of growing worldwide threats to democratic Governments and institutions, the UK needs to urgently reassert the value of participative democracy as an essential component in peaceful and prosperous societies. To do that, we need to respond to the democratic challenges that have emerged in our own country by adopting the provisions in the Bill.

The Bill would introduce a system of proportional representation for parliamentary elections and local government elections in England. Liberal Democrats have been calling for the introduction of a single transferable vote system whereby candidates on a ballot paper are ranked according to the voter’s preference. That system would protect the critical local link between MPs and their constituencies, which is valuable in connecting individual voters with the Parliament that makes decisions on their behalf. Constituency MPs understand the specific issues that voters in their seat are experiencing and can connect them to the broader issues facing the country. A system of STV would preserve that aspect of our current system, but would also ensure that MPs enjoyed the broad support of the majority of their electors.

In the most recent general election, the number of MPs elected to this Chamber with more than 50% of the votes cast in their constituency was just 96—a decrease from 421 in the 2019 election and 476 in the general election before that. Ten of our colleagues in this Parliament were elected with fewer than 30% of the vote of their constituents who turned out. Far fewer MPs today can say they have the support of the majority of their constituents, or even a broad base of support, than ever before.

Proportional electoral systems have been used successfully for elections in the UK’s devolved Parliaments and Assemblies since the turn of the century. One of the advantages of adopting STV for all local elections in England, as well as general elections, is that it is already in use in two of the four nations that make up the UK. Now Welsh councils also have the power to adopt STV if they wish, it may soon be three out of the four nations. Proportional representation through an STV system is not alien to the UK; millions of people across the country are already familiar with voting in that way. The use of proportional systems that retain a close constituency link across the UK makes Westminster’s use of first past the post the outlier rather than the norm.

Changing the voting system for UK parliamentary elections is not the only thing that needs to be done to restore democratic engagement in this country. The shambles of the last Conservative Government created a crisis for democracy. Thanks to their cronyism, rule breaking, and sleaze scandals, public trust in Government is worryingly low. Successive Conservative Prime Ministers acted without integrity and treated Parliament and the people with disdain. In the previous Parliament, the Conservatives weakened the independence of the Electoral Commission and introduced disproportionate voting systems for mayoral elections in England and the undemocratic voter identification scheme.

The Liberal Democrats believe that public confidence in democracy is vital for effective and functioning Governments and that, consequently, we must take all possible steps to rebuild public trust in politics. We will continue to call on the Government to scrap the voter ID scheme and will hold them to account for their conduct in office. But the most effective change we can make to clear up the mess the Conservatives left is to change the voting system and ensure that the voices of voters across the British Isles can properly be heard.

I am glad to know that support for electoral reform comes from not only the Liberal Democrat Benches but across the House. I am pleased that Labour Members in particular agree that we need proportional representation after voting overwhelmingly in favour of PR at their conference two years ago. More importantly, recent polling shows that a majority of the British public are in favour of scrapping first past the post and moving to proportional representation. The all-party parliamentary group for fair elections was launched last week with the support of over 100 MPs. Its report “Free But Not Fair” highlights many of the structural issues that have led to the decline of public trust in politics and engagement with elections.

We must take urgent action to protect democratic processes and institutions in the UK from threats here and abroad. We need to listen to the warning bells sounded by the general election that the citizens we seek to serve, and who must abide by the laws we pass, are becoming disenchanted with the political process. If we want to continue to be a beacon of democracy across the world, we must ensure that it serves its purpose in giving a voice to the people and delivering prosperity and stability. We cannot do the latter if we fail to do the former.

First past the post is a broken and unfair system. This summer, the Labour party won a landslide election victory, securing 63% of seats in the House of Commons in return for just 34% of the vote. The system leaves millions of voices unheard and creates a divisive, adversarial political climate where collaboration is discouraged and accountability is often sidestepped. The Liberal Democrats have long championed proportional representation, advocating for a voting system where every vote truly counts. We must modernise our electoral system, create a fairer process to engage voters, listen to the needs of our constituents and rebuild trust in politics.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings