Agenda item

To consider a motion submitted by Councillors Lenox, Bannon, Black, Blaikie, Dowding and Wood.

At the start of this item, the Head of Democratic Services apologised for an error on the briefing note where Councillor Black’s name had been omitted from the list of proposers.

Councillor Lenox proposed the following motion having given the required notice to the Chief Executive in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 15:-

“Council notes that:

• First Past the Post (FPTP) originated when land-owning aristocrats dominated parliament and voting was restricted to property-owning men.
• In Europe, only the UK and authoritarian Belarus still use archaic single-round FPTP for general elections. Meanwhile, internationally, Proportional Representation (PR) is used to elect parliaments in more than 80 countries. Those countries tend to be more equal, freer and greener.
• PR ensures all votes count, have equal value, and those seats won match votes cast. Under PR, MPs and Parliaments better reflect the age, gender and protected characteristics of local communities and the nation.
• MPs better reflecting their communities leads to improved decision-making, wider participation and increased levels of ownership of decisions taken.
• PR would also end minority rule. In 2019, 43.6% of the vote produced a government with 56.2% of the seats and 100% of the power. PR also prevents ‘wrong winner’ elections such as occurred in 1951 and February 1974.
• PR is already used to elect the parliaments and assemblies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. So why not Westminster?

Council therefore resolves to instruct the CEO to write to H.M. Government calling for a change in our outdated electoral laws to enable Proportional Representation to be used for general elections.”

Councillor Black seconded the motion before Councillor Lenox responded to questions from Members.

A briefing note explaining the two voting systems had been included with the agenda papers.

Council debated the motion for some time before going to the vote. The motion was clearly carried.                                                    

Resolved:-

Council notes that:

• First Past the Post (FPTP) originated when land-owning aristocrats dominated parliament and voting was restricted to property-owning men.
• In Europe, only the UK and authoritarian Belarus still use archaic single-round FPTP for general elections. Meanwhile, internationally, Proportional Representation (PR) is used to elect parliaments in more than 80 countries. Those countries tend to be more equal, freer and greener.
• PR ensures all votes count, have equal value, and those seats won match votes cast. Under PR, MPs and Parliaments better reflect the age, gender and protected characteristics of local communities and the nation.
• MPs better reflecting their communities leads to improved decision-making, wider participation and increased levels of ownership of decisions taken.
• PR would also end minority rule. In 2019, 43.6% of the vote produced a government with 56.2% of the seats and 100% of the power. PR also prevents ‘wrong winner’ elections such as occurred in 1951 and February 1974.
• PR is already used to elect the parliaments and assemblies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. So why not Westminster?

Council therefore resolves to instruct the CEO to write to H.M. Government calling for a change in our outdated electoral laws to enable Proportional Representation to be used for general elections.