MPs demand parliamentary inquiry into voting reform

Tony Blair faced a direct challenge on his mandate to govern without a majority of votes as MPs called for a parliamentary inquiry to examine the case for voting reform.

A motion is to be tabled in the House of Commons by a coalition of senior MPs calling for a "special committee" to look at changing the electoral system.

At his monthly press conference at Downing Street yesterday, Mr Blair was asked whether he had a real mandate to govern in England after the Tories secured more votes than Labour in England in last week's election. He denied that this raised questions about his authority. "In the end, I think you have one class of MP."

But Frank Field, the senior Labour backbencher, said reform was now a necessity because the current electoral system was "monstrously unfair". Mr Field, a former minister for welfare reform, is to put down a motion in the Commons calling for a formal inquiry by a parliamentary committee into the voting system. His call for a six-month-long inquiry is supported by other senior Labour figures, the Liberal Democrats and minority parties such as Plaid Cymru.

The "special committee" would look at the implications of the first-past-the-post system and the advantages and disadvantages of reform. The all-party committee would produce a committee report at the end.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said his party believed there should be a Commons committee dedicated to looking at PR. "The electoral system must now reflect the sophistication of the voters. Objective consideration of the principle and practice of PR would be an enormous contribution to a debate which is simply not going to go away," Sir Menzies said.

Hundreds of readers of all political complexions have contacted The Independent to pledge support for reform after the newspaper's Campaign for Democracy began. Writing in The Independent today, Mr Field says the electoral system "fails to meet the primary requirement of British democracy that the House of Commons should be representative of voters' views".

Mr Blair stopped short of saying yesterday that the current first-past-the-post system is fair but he gave little sign that he would support calls for reform.

"I know that The Independent is getting very interested in this debate. But the trouble, in any electoral system, is that it can lead to different types of results which people claim are unfair for different types of reasons," he said. "The problem with PR systems is that you can often have a result where a small party actually holds the balance of power. That's unfair as well."

The voting system is being reviewed by the Government in the light of the use of PR for elections to the assemblies in Scotland, Wales and London. But the Government has made it clear that this is a "low level" review and not designed to lead to a policy change.

Mr Blair said the vote for the Liberal Democrats did not mean that voters were undecided about the Government. "I also have to give you my frank view that if this was a straight Labour-Tory fight, I don't think that there is any doubt about what the outcome of the election would have been. I think if it had been Labour versus Lib Dems it would have been the same. It might even have been, if it had been Tory versus Lib Dems, they would have gone Tory. I don't think you can tell, in other words, that the existence of the third party with this amount of vote means that people were undecided about the Government."

But there were signs that a proportional system may be introduced for a reformed House of Lords. With Lords reform on the agenda during this Parliament, any elected element - which could range from 20 per cent of peers to a 100 per cent elected chamber - would be likely to be chosen through PR. Lord McNally, Liberal Democrat leader in the House of Lords, said: "The truth is that if we want to run a healthy political system we have to have a system that is palpably fair."

Billy Bragg, the musician who has been campaigning for a reformed Lords, told the Government that he wants the second chamber to be elected on a basis that reflects votes for the Commons. He said: "The Labour Party are committed to reforming the second chamber. So it is by holding their hand to the fire over that ... that we get all these issues on the agenda including PR for the Commons."

He warned: "Young people are not voting because they don't see how their votes make a difference. I didn't vote when I first got the vote. It took Margaret Thatcher to convince me that actually voting does make a difference."

Changing his tune How Blair set his face against democracy

"We are committed to a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons. An independent commission on voting systems will be appointed early to recommend a proportional alternative to first-past-the-post."

Labour's 1997 election manifesto

"A well argued and powerful case ... It is very much a modification of the existing Westminster system, rather than any full-blown PR system as practised in other countries."

Blair on the 1998 Jenkins report that suggested a proportional system

"There are no plans to change the present system."

The Prime Minister's spokesman, earlier this week