Power to the People Conference – 6 May 2006
(report by Richard Groom)
The Power Commission was established by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust to take an independent look at democracy in Britain. The core of the investigation was to find out why the public does not engage in politics, as evident from declining election turnout. The commission took evidence across the spectrum of party activists, voters and non-voters. It came up with thirty recommendations to redress matters.
The conference attracted several hundred participants – far more than the organisers had expected – and two high profile speakers, David Cameron and Menzies Campbell. The two speakers shared much common ground. They agreed that:-
- The power currently enjoyed by No 10 should be controlled by Parliament. The government abuses the Royal Prerogative.
- Some or all of the constitution should be written to guard against abuse by the unscrupulous. Ming said that No 10, without reference to Parliament had removed many of the rights hard-won by our predecessors.
- The House of Lords must become a substantially elected chamber.
- That power should be devolved from central government to local government and indeed to individuals (Direct Democracy).
- The whips should have less influence and there should be more free voting.
They disagreed on one vital point. David Cameron remains in favour of the First Past the Post electoral system. He argued that it is easier to remove a government under this system than Proportional Representation. He said that the link between an MP and his constituency is sacrosanct and would be weakened under PR. He said that the Conservative party would introduce a system of primaries to select party candidates and felt that this would engage the electorate in the case of safe seats where currently there is little point in the casting votes for the opposition parties.
Ming said that, as stated in the Power Commission’s report, Proportional Representation is a cornerstone of the reform. He also saw PR as a means of enriching the diversity of party politics which would stimulate the dissent and debate on which Parliament should thrive.
Both Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties will be setting up working parties / task groups to consider Power’s recommendations. In addition Ming announced that the Liberal Democrats would be running a virtual on-line conference on the Power proposals as a forum on the website, during the week running up to the Annual Conference.
In addition to the main speeches there were breakout sessions looking at specific parts of the Report. I chose the one on Direct Democracy. I assumed this would focus on email or text message voting but discovered that this subject is a good deal more complicated. Chris Huhne gave an excellent talk on the dangers and opportunities of direct voting by the people on particular issues.
There was a Question Time style session to round off the day. Helena Kennedy chaired, and Nick Boles, Saira Khan (featured on ‘The Apprentice’), Ed Milliband MP and Peter Tatchell fielded the questions.
For me, Peter Tatchell made the most important point in summing up the Commission’s report and the reactions of the politicians. The Commission had been clear in saying that all recommendations needed to be actioned and yet it is already evident that the Conservative party will not embrace PR and the Labour government reneged on its manifesto promise to review electoral reform. So how do we get the reforms implemented? The only way is a popular campaign to force the politicians to listen.
I can’t think of a better person to lead that campaign.
If you have time, the full report is worth a read. If not, I recommend the executive summary which you can download from http://powerinquiry.org/index.php
