CHANGES TO British election rules will be put to referendum if Labour wins the general election on May 6th, prime minister Gordon Brown has promised.
Under the plan, a third of the upper chamber would be opened up to election by proportional representation in each of the next three parliaments, while the right of hereditary peers to sit in the Lords would end.
Seeking to assuage voters’ anger over expenses and lobbying scandals, Mr Brown said MPs would be banned from working for lobbying companies while voters would be able to force a byelection if they were unhappy with their local MP.
The right of recall would be granted if a petition was signed by between 10 and 20 per cent of constituents, and if the MP had been found guilty of gross financial irregularity by the newly-created Parliamentary Standards Authority.
“I would take no pride in walking through the door of number 10 again, take no joy in victory, if it comes without a mandate to get rid of the old discredited system of politics,” Mr Brown told a Labour gathering in London.
The Labour manifesto, to be published next week, will include a commitment to produce a written constitution for the UK, and a reduction in the voting age to 16.
A referendum would be held on whether the UK should drop its first-past-the-post election rules with the Alternative Vote (AV), which would ensure that an MP secures a minimum of 50 per cent of the ballot.
The promise, though it does not meet Liberal Democrat demands for proportional representation, is seen as an olive branch to the third-largest party, if it is needed to form a government later.
Equally, the House of Commons should sit for a fixed-term – probably four years – thus removing the right of a prime minister to decide when an election can be called.
However, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg rejected Mr Brown’s AV offer, saying that it was “a Del Boy promise” from a party that has failed to reform the rules during 13 years of power.
The Conservatives’ shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, meanwhile, insisted that they would “absolutely” not abandon first-past-the-post in any post-election talks with the Liberal Democrats, saying it gave the public the ability to sack a government.
Meanwhile, Labour has been forced on the defensive about its plans to increase National Insurance rates from April 2011 for employers and workers in the face of support for the Tory plan to cut the planned increase in half from business leaders. Business argues the proposed increase is a tax on jobs and that it will hinder recruitment, and, perhaps, cause job losses.
In the Commons, the prime minister said the measure was chosen instead of raising VAT rates. Earlier, he had claimed that business leaders – 30 more of whom came out yesterday in support of the Conservatives’ proposal – have been deceived.
“Britain is on the road to recovery. Don’t put that at risk. The Conservatives’ policy would take £6 billion (€6.85 billion) out of the economy. That is a huge sum of money to take out of the economy,” said Mr Brown.
Responding to criticism from Conservative leader David Cameron, Mr Brown said voters have a clear choice: “We can put National Insurance up and therefore protect our schools, our hospitals and our policing, or we can do what the Conservatives traditionally do and that’s put our hospitals, police and health service at risk.”
- An OECD report has predicted the UK economy will grow strongly in coming months.