Enter a new phenomenon that Conservatives cannot ignore: Reform, despite only 4 seats in Parliament, now runs broadly level in its popular support with both Conservatives and Labour – and Reform wants electoral change. Had we had a proportional system in 2024 for Westminster they could have won about 90 seats: the probability is that rather than a Labour Government we would now have a coalition of the centre-right in charge. The May elections will give us an indication as to whether Reform will continue to gain support or whether its internal shenanigans and personality politics will see its demise. If the roller-coaster continues then, whether we like it or not, electoral reform will be back on the agenda. Do we sleepwalk and pretend that the elephant in the room is not there or begin to get real and start taking some initiative? 

Let me pass over the obvious advantages of proportional representation in multi-member constituencies (single transferable vote) which would see more female candidates and greater choice for the electorate between more than one candidate for each party. The reality is that under such a system the Conservatives would have to find like-minded partners to form a Government but in a considered way rather than the shotgun marriage with the Liberal Democrats in 2010 and with the DUP under Theresa May. What is certain with current polling is that the Government would not be a Labour or centre-left one. Where does patriotism lie? Do we allow what may appear to be best for the Party to overcome what might be best for the country? We know the answer that Winston Churchill would have given. Of course, it can be argued that the current Labour Government is doing the job for us in becoming so unpopular as to be a one-term anomaly and that, just as in the last election people voted against the Conservatives rather than for Labour so the principle would be turned on its head. It would certainly reinforce the fact that our system encourages people to vote against a party rather than for it – another feature that would change with proportional representation.  

An issue for the present Conservative leadership is how far we should try to tempt defectors to Reform to return to the fold or ignore them and strike out with our own brand in the hope that they will see sense in time for the next election? If we were prepared to put out an olive branch then committing ourselves to a serious consideration of electoral reform might do the trick and also steal some thunder. Arguably, however, there may be a more pressing reason than winning back the voters – winning back the former Tory donors who have haemorrhaged and switched their financial allegiance to Reform. Their views on the Conservatives seeking a greater policy accommodation with Reform may be critical. The current reality is that alone of the main political parties (including Reform in populist terms) the Conservatives is the only one which is not prepared to have an open debate about electoral reform – if we are to show that we are aligned with the times and current thinking then that must change. 

The least that we should do is to consider what system(s) might be most appropriate – not necessarily one size fitting all. Within living memory we had university seats electing three MPs to other constituencies’ one. We have living examples in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd of how an additional member system might work and need to look only across the water to Ireland to see how the single transferable vote operates. Large cities like Leeds and Sheffield could well become multi-member constituencies without losing geographical identity while in the more rural areas an additional member system might be more appropriate. The fact remains that, whatever the nature of their election, once in the assembly/Parliament together all are treated equally as is demonstrated in both Cardiff and Holyrood. 

It would be unrealistic to want a sudden and complete change of attitude towards electoral reform in the Conservative Party but my plea is that we now need to take this seriously and develop our thoughts on the matter – it has a momentum which we cannot control and if we do not seek to get to the driving seat the bus may take a direction we do not want or even go off the road altogether. 

This also meant there as a renewed focus on how the First Past the Post electoral system had impacted the party, with Reform splitting the vote on the right in an unprecedented way.

This debate culminated at our crowded fringe event at the Hyatt Hotel looking at how the party could rebuild a winning electoral coalition.  The event was vibrant, lively, and stimulated some good questions and comments from the members present.

As CAER chair, I opened the event arguing that if the party wants to revive its political fortunes it needs to seriously consider electoral reform, especially if Reform remain a feature of the electoral landscape. I have been a supporter of PR for many decades, partly due to living in the safe Labour area of Lambeth, in London, where my fellow Conservatives and I have little incentive to go out and vote on a ‘wet and windy evening’ as the result was always a ‘foregone conclusion’.

As I told the fringe, this conference is about rebuilding trust with the electorate on the basis of fairness and justice for all the people and we must listen to them, not just to Party members, so it is appropriate that electoral reform should feature in that. The 2024 election was the most disproportional in history: Sir Keir Starmer had been elected with an enormous majority of 172 seats with fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn secured in 2019 when the Conservatives won with an 80 seat majority; what is the fairness in that?

Only one third of voters and one fifth of the total electorate had voted Labour in the 2024 election which meant that it was not a vote for Labour but a vote against the Conservatives – perhaps why the present Conference is so upbeat as we recognise that we have to put our own house in order which is easier than confronting a popular new government as we did with Tony Blair in 1997.

This election for the first time saw four parties gain more than 10% of the total vote – almost as though people were voting thinking we have a proportional system. Every new legislature in my long lifetime has been elected on a proportional system – Northern Ireland Assembly, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Senedd and now, of course Scottish local government having changed to it and a facility for Welsh local government to adopt it if, after public consultation, it is wanted. So why do we want fairness for all these bodies affecting our lives but not for Westminster? Why for Parliament should we disenfranchise so many people?

Putting power in the hands of voters, not parties

We are firmly against party lists which removes choice from the elector so I condemned what the Labour Party in Wales has planned for the Senedd elections and we should fight it. In any list system the voter should be able to prioritise and not have to rely on where the party places the candidates. We accept that in the UK we may need to have a mixed system (not unique – in former times university seats returned three members against others with only one). Single Transferable Vote works well in a conurbation such as Sheffield which would be one identifiable multi-member constituency but in the West Country or rural Wales it means covering hundreds of miles and another system might be more appropriate. We already have two types of representative in the Additional Member systems in Scotland and Wales and it does not create two classes of representative.

Representation for all Conservatives

One of the great benefits of multi-member constituencies is that it encourages parties to put forward several candidates of mixed gender, ethnicity and political opinion – giving voters the choice. Conservatives were making progress on electing more women (we gave women under 30 the vote in 1928) but in this election went backwards. Proportional representation is the obvious answer to ensuring more women are elected.

How would we go about this in the UK? Our preferred option is to mirror the New Zealand answer: to first ask the question “Do you want electoral change?” and, if the answer is affirmative, to then ask what system is most appropriate. In determining what system or mix of systems – but all proportional – we might need a Royal or other Commission to look at the country in detail.

The view of the speakers, however, was that it is unlikely that we shall see another referendum on the issue but more likely that it will be in a party manifesto in a subsequent election. Conservatives must be ready with their thoughts well-considered in advance.

A great selection of speakers

The following is reproduced with permission from the Electoral Reform Society’s report from the event, available on their website.

Split vote under First Past the Post more likely to lock Conservatives out of power than PR

The fringe then heard from John Oxley, the Conservative writer and commentator, who warned that the party was currently relying on an increasingly ageing electoral coalition and had to consider how it would start appealing to younger voters and people of working age. He said that one startling fact was that the amount of people who cast their first vote for the Conservatives had declined between 2010 and 2024.

John also argued if the right’s vote remained split at future elections, that is more likely to lock the Conservatives out of government than any change to a proportional electoral system. He said that Europe, where most countries have a form of proportional representation, showed that the centre right often won and thrived under different voting systems.  

The public is put off by the complexity of First Past the Post

Joe Twyman, co-founder and director of Deltapoll, broke down some of the company’s research on how people decided who to vote for under the current First Past the Post system. He said the company had found that fewer than half of voters know who had won in their seat at the last election and even fewer than that know how close the second-place party had been.

Joe said that in reality the public were not hugely aware of how to vote tactically, but that parties had become very adept at telling them which candidate to vote for tactically in election leaflets and social media videos. Joe also said that, when polled, the public said that what they want from a voting system is that it represents how people voted, gives parties seats in proportion with the number of votes they won, is easy to understand and provides strong government.

 The ship will leave – Conservatives need to be on it  

Lastly, the audience heard from Emma Best, a Conservative member of the Greater London Assembly, who made an impassioned case for the Conservative party to engage with the debate on electoral reform. She said that as a Conservative supporter in a Labour party of London, voting for her had largely been a ‘ceremonial event’, until she had been able to vote in the Mayor of London elections, which until this year had been held under the preferential Supplementary Vote system.

She said that she would not have been elected to the London Assembly without the proportional list part of the Additional Member System (AMS) that the authority uses. Emma also told the audience that without AMS, the Conservatives would have been reduced to three members on the Assembly at the May elections, rather than the eight they currently have.

Emma ended by telling the fringe that a move to proportional representation will happen at some point, and that the party needed to do it’s thinking on the issue now. She added: “The ship will leave, and we can either get on board or stand on the side and complain about the direction it’s going in”.

It is not a particularly penetrating insight to say that the recent local elections were very bad for the Conservative Party. The night saw losses exceed the 1,000 seats Ministers had briefed to manage expectations – and came close to the disastrous results of 2019. The focus in the immediate aftermath and since has, understandably, been on the national vote shares and how they augur for the next general election…

Read more on ConHome…

Proportional representation (PR) will likely happen in our lifetime. But the way the electoral math is forming ahead of the next election it could be far sooner than we anticipate. Read more on Conservative Home…

It was fantastic to be in Birmingham surrounded by fellow party members concerned about the future of our great democracy. We had a great turnout that filled the room with an engaging debate on electoral reform. A special thanks goes to the Conservative elected representatives who attended and the supporting organisations.

In Scotland and Wales, proportional representation has ensured that Conservative voters get Conservative representatives, when First Past the Post alone would have seen them sidelined and nationalists empowered. 

As the issue of electoral reform is gaining traction in the wider political agenda, it is more important than ever that a Conservative voice on electoral reform is heard.  Conservative Action for Electoral Reform is the only group that can do this.

We are looking to do more in the coming months, surveying MPs and councillors and holding meetings on the subject (there are more who are in favour of a fairer system than you may think) – but for this we need your help.

Could you tell your friends about CAER?

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We want to know all the Conservatives who are open to a fairer voting system. If you or anybody you know is interested in supporting us, please subscribe through our website and share this article with them.

We believe in the Conservative vision: a fairer voting system is not only aligned with that but could help secure electoral success.

Keith Best
Chair, CAER

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When she first embarked on overseas travel it was as heir to the Head of the British Empire, while during her reign she saw the empire disappear and be replaced by a free association of 54 nations representing some 2.4 billion people in the Commonwealth – almost one third of the world’s population. She oversaw that transition with skill, diplomacy and sensitivity and it was her obvious affection for and interest in the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious diversity of the Commonwealth that inspired so many to reciprocate with admiration and love.
In the UK she lived through great constitutional changes during her seventy years’ reign. In 1969 the UK led Western Europe in lowering the voting age to 18. In 1973 the ill-fated Northern Ireland Assembly was created elected by proportional representation, a system of election that has survived the various subsequent changes and the institution of the New Northern Ireland Assembly through the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement in 1998. The Scotland Act 1978 provided for the establishment of the Scottish Assembly but Scotland had to wait until 1999 for the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, again elected through proportional representation. In May 1999 the Welsh Assembly (now Senedd) elected by proportional representation followed. As its website points out in a tribute to the late Queen she attended every Senedd opening ceremony since its inception, reflecting her recognition of this Parliament’s contribution to Welsh life.

In local government, since 2007, the single transferable vote has been used to elect Scottish and Northern Irish councils. The Queen also witnessed the creation of The London Assembly whose members are elected through proportional representation. For the majority of her reign the UK was part of the European Union with MEPs elected by proportional representation to the European Parliament.

Metropolitan mayors and, until the Elections Act passed in April 2022, the Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) have been elected using the supplementary vote system in which voters rank their two favoured candidates where the second-preference votes of eliminated candidates are reallocated if no candidate has an outright majority. Following the passing of the Elections Act 2022, however, PCCs will now be elected using the first-past-the-post system.

Notwithstanding the recent reversion to first-past-the-post for PCCs every new legislative body or elected office during the late Queen’s reign has been under a system of proportional representation or the supplementary vote, making Westminster look increasingly isolated. A similar story of electoral transition can be observed in the Commonwealth. Queen Elizabeth II leaves behind an uncontested legacy as a beacon for democracy.

The late Queen was the perfect constitutional monarch. Although, clearly, she had her opinions and, no doubt, gave valuable private advice to her fifteen Prime Ministers (of which we shall never learn because they remain confidential), she was careful never to enter into the political debate. We do not know her views on proportional representation or issues like devolution nor, even, on Scottish independence (although we can guess). We do know that she had a special involvement with and affection for Scotland (where she was Elizabeth I, not Elizabeth II) and, of course, she may well have been of the view that in the event of independence she would, nevertheless, remain Head of State for Scotland (as she is was for so many former colonies) as well as for the UK – mirroring James VI of Scotland who became coincidentally James I of England – as, indeed, has been proposed by the First Minister.

The degree of tact and self-control that enabled the late Queen to steer this difficult course with such skill, humour, sensitivity and correctness can only be a source of marvel and admiration for all of us. She will long be remembered not only for her longevity but also for those qualities which have been an inspiration to us all.

Keith Best
Chair CAER

Scotland’s councils switched to the Single Transferable Vote – the gold standard of proportional representation in the ERS’ eyes – in 2007, and hasn’t looked back since.

Questions and answers have been trimmed for brevity.

Josiah Mortimer: Why do you back STV for local councils in Scotland?

Cllr Dempsey: It removes the need for voters to vote for something they don’t want, to stop them getting something they want even less.

There aren’t all that many who go back to or before the 2007 switchover [to STV]. It took a bit of adjusting to, but I don’t remember any real revolt.

Is anyone calling for a return to FPTP?

Not at our level, not at council level.

You – and even Labour figures – have mentioned before that Fife was a one-party Labour fiefdom. Do you think that fiefdom structure and mentality stemmed at least partly from the fact that there was a winner takes all voting system?

Yes.

Do people think it’s still a problem now?

No, nobody. I don’t think anybody quite thinks like that anymore. The seats are spread out proportionally as you would expect!

It works out at there’s an SNP councillor in every ward. There’s a Labour councillor in most of the wards. We [Conservatives] are fairly spread through. I don’t think anybody thinks of any bit as theirs.

You must speak to your SNP colleagues and obviously your Conservative colleagues quite regularly within your multi-member ward. Do you work together on issues?

Yes. We have a [all-ward councillor] work meeting roughly every six weeks. And I describe them as most useful meetings we attend.

We also have, again, roughly every six or eight weeks, a formal committee meeting at what’s called area level, which is roughly three wards.

I would challenge someone attending, not if someone just walked in off the street and sat down to guess who was in which party, because even at that level, and that’s 10 councillors for us it is still pretty consensual and good natured.

How would you describe the relationship with other councillors? How do voters respond?

One description is competitive cooperation, and the other is cooperative competition. You can take your pick. We are trying to steal a march on other parties while at the same time cooperating for the public.

We’ve got two SNP and two Conservatives in my ward, but we still there’s a lot of interaction. I get the impression that other wards find their modus operandi and they come to some way of doing it, which suits the three or four of them and they get on with it.

Would you say that voters take note of this – do you think they value that sense of cooperation and, and having a choice of councillors to go to at one time, from different parties?

We have things called community councils up here, which I think are probably closest to parish councils, but they don’t have much of a budget to deploy. So, they’re that conduit for information. And the four of us turn up pretty religiously. I think [voters] appreciate the fact that they can, to some extent, play us off against each other.

I say to voters: if you’ve got an issue and you’re not getting joy of the system, email all your ward councillors. So, all of them know that all the others have got it. And see who jumps first.

That is quite an effective way of doing it, because you can use the fact that you have this degree of competition.

We have tended to specialise. There’s a councillor in the ward who’s considerably longer in service than me – she goes back to the old previous era. And she specializes in council housing and social work. That’s what drives her. I’m an ex-engineer. I’m known as the man for potholes and trees. So, we have developed specialisms and we do on occasions refer to other members.

That seems to be part of a trend across Scotland.

If you take the north of Scotland, you have this wonderful thing: councils controlled by independents. It clearly works for them.

Would a switch to PR help at Westminster for Scotland?

If you take the SNP MPs, it’s down from the 56 [seats] or what it was at its peak for Westminster, but the central belt in particular is just [SNP] yellow from one end to the other. The results are a very, very poor reflection of what the voters’ opinion is.

The UK government plans to roll back preferential voting for mayors in England [abolishing voters’ second preference]. What do you make of it?

Oh dear. I don’t approve of that at all.

When STV came in here, there was strong resistance from a lot of our members and activists on the basis that nobody gives us second preference vote. The idea that nobody gives us preferences has disappeared. Nobody talks about it now, and it’s fundamentally not true.

This article was originally published on the Electoral Reform Society’s website.

Some of the worst offenders are quite shocking. In 2019, in the small borough of Oadby and Wigston in Leicestershire, the Lib Dems took 92 per cent of the seats with 60 per cent of the vote. The Conservatives came second with just under half of the votes the LibDems polled, but won only two seats out of 28. The Conservatives gained seven per cent of the seats despite polling 25 per cent of the overall vote.

Manchester is a more recent example. Manchester is often perceived as a deep red Labour heartland. While there is no doubt that Labour is dominant in the city, it is not actually Labour only. In the 2022 elections, Labour won 94 per cent of the seats with only 66 per cent of the vote.

Cheltenham tells a similar story, the Lib-Dems secured 18 seats while the Conservatives only managed to secure one, despite gaining over 9,000 votes to the Liberal Democrats 19,000. The Conservatives should have secured between six and nine seats if the electoral process had been fair.

A sense of fair play is missing in local elections. Bright upcoming councillors are missing out on opportunities to support their local communities because of a failing local electoral system. Engaging in fair play is critical to the success of democracy and one of Britain’s great values.

Single party councils also shame the British sense of democracy. The London borough elections produced two all Labour councils, Lewisham – and Barking and Dagenham. 11 per cent of Lewisham’s residents voted Conservative; at least five Conservative councillors should sit in Lewisham making a stand against Labour’s mismanagement. In 2018 over 40 per cent of Lewisham secondary school pupils did not go to a good or outstanding school and Lewisham had the slowest broadband speed in South East London. A 2016 report showed Lewisham is in the bottom three local authorities nationally for its recycling rate with only 17.1 per cent of household waste being recycled. In Lewisham in 2022, Labour gained 100 per cent of the seats with only 55 per cent of the vote.

Barking and Dagenham produced an even less representative result. The Conservatives almost secured 20 per cent of the vote but were denied even a single seat. In 2018 the Conservatives had 23 per cent and still no councillor to represent the thousands of Conservative voters in the borough.

While the debate rages on as to whether Labour councils are less tax-efficient than Conservative councils, one party councils are, as a matter of fact, less tax-efficient. These London Labour one party councils would seriously benefit from opposition voices.

The biggest risk is that as more councils become unfairly dominated by a single party, engagement on the whole decreases. People are less likely to bother turning up to vote for the Conservatives in an election if they perceive their vote as a waste of time. Whereas if the electoral system was adjusted allowing for more proportional representation, Labour-dominated areas would be broken up and more people would feel included in the electoral process. More people would get out and vote Conservative. A greater freedom of choice could help drive up the Conservative vote in local elections.

Freedom of choice and competition bring out the best in humans. Safe Labour councils are much less likely to listen and respond to the needs of local residents in turn producing lower quality elections. More competition is needed to drive up England’s democratic standards.

Every newly created elected body in the UK has avoided using the First Past the Post system; this is true for both local and national parliaments. English local elections and Westminster are becoming increasingly anomalous. It is time to embrace the Conservative values of fair play and freedom of choice, and agree that local elections in England should be placed under review. The Conservatives owe it to the many unrepresented and left behind Conservative voters.

Please find below the 29 most rotten elections where the Conservatives lost seats unfairly to Labour and the Lib Dems. (Not including London.)

• Bassetlaw: In 2019, Labour took 77 per cent of the seats with 45 per cent of the vote.
• Cambridge: In 2022, Labour took 75 per cent of the seats with 45 per cent of the votes. LibDems and Greens polled as many votes as Labour but won only a third of the seats.
• Chelmsford: In 2019, the Liberal Democrats took 54 per cent of the seats with 37 per cent of the vote. The Conservatives were a mere 30 votes behind the LibDems but won 10 fewer seats.
• Cheltenham: In 2022, the Liberal Democrats took 86 per cent of the seats with 55 per cent of the vote. The Conservatives had only one seat to show for a vote total half that of the LibDems.
• Gedling: In 2019, Labour took 70 per cent of the seats with 46 per cent of the vote.
• Halton: In 2022, Labour took 89 per cent of the seats with 64 per cent of the votes.
• High Peak: In 2019, Labour took 51 per cent of the seats with 34 per cent of the vote.
• Ipswich: In 2022, Labour took 82 per cent of the seats with 47 per cent of the vote.
• Kirklees: In 2022, Labour took 61 per cent of the seats with 41 per cent of the votes.
• Leeds: In 2022, Labour took 60 per cent of the seats with 44 per cent of the vote.
• Lincoln: In 2022, Labour took 45 per cent of the seats with 28 per cent of the votes.
• Liverpool: In 2021, Labour took 74 per cent of the seats with 50 per cent of the votes.
• Manchester: In 2022, Labour took 94 per cent of the seats with 66 per cent of the vote.
• Mansfield: In 2019, Labour took 42 per cent of the seats with 34 per cent of the vote.
• Newcastle on Tyne: In 2022, Labour took 70 per cent of the seats with 44 per cent of the votes.
• Norwich: In 2022, Labour took 61 per cent of the seats with 45 per cent of the vote.
• Oadby and Wigston: In 2019, the LibDems took 92 per cent of the seats with 60 per cent of the vote. The Conservatives came second with half the votes the LibDems polled but won only two seats out of the 28.
• Oxford: In 2022, Labour took 62 per cent of the seats with 44 per cent of the votes.
• Salford: In 2022, Labour took 75 per cent of the seats with 54 per cent of the votes.
• Sefton: In 2022, Labour took 77 per cent of the seats with 49 per cent of the votes.
• Somerset West and Taunton: In 2019, the LibDems took 51 per cent of the seats with 39 per cent of the vote.
• South Oxfordshire: In 2019, the Liberal Democrats took 33 per cent of the seats with 28 per cent of the vote. The Conservatives took few seats (28 per cent) even though they polled more votes (29 per cent).
• South Somerset: In 2019, the Liberal Democrats took 68 per cent of the seats with 44 per cent of the vote.
• Swindon: In 2022, Labour took 63 per cent of the seats with 46 per cent of the votes.
• Tameside: In 2022, Labour took 79 per cent of the seats with 55 per cent of the votes.
• Tunbridge Wells: In 2022, the LibDems took 37 per cent of the seats for 22 per cent of the vote.
• Vale of White Horse: In 2019, the Liberal Democrats took 81 per cent of the seats with 55 per cent of the vote.
• Wigan: In 2022, Labour took 85 per cent of the seats with 53 per cent of the votes.

Keith Best is the Chairman of Conservative Action for Electoral Reform and a former Conservative MP. The research behind this article was originally published by David Green and was since further analysed by Conservative Action for Electoral Reform for Conservative Home.

In addition to the seven powerful regional mayoralties that exist in England, there are twenty-three directly-elected mayoralties across our boroughs and cities. London is unique in the fact that it not only has a regional mayor, but also four Labour-run boroughs which deemed it necessary to have mayors too.

The national spotlight on some of these, such as Tower Hamlets and Newham, has generally not been positive. As the Conservative Party’s candidate for Mayor of Newham, I am firmly of the belief that the lack of meaningful scrutiny and oversight within the current system is undermining the office of directly-elected mayors.

If we take Newham as an example, we have a borough which has had no opposition councillors elected to the Town Hall since 2006. If it had not been for the rigorous investigations of community activists some of the poor and imprudent decision-making of the Council would never have been exposed to the general public.

The scrutiny function of members is well below that which could be expected if opposition representation existed in the borough’s town hall. This must be considered against the backdrop of public meetings of the Full Council which on occasions have lasted for less than an hour with decisions rubber-stamped well in advance. Meetings are called at the whim of the Mayor as opposed to being properly scheduled monthly and routine as seen in most local authorities. In 2017, outside the statutory requirement of the budget setting and Annual General Meeting, the Full Council met only four times in the calendar year to discuss business.

Examining the political complexion of all twenty-three elected mayoralties, you can see how such a situation could be repeated in other boroughs when proper scrutiny and opposition representation is not built into the system of governance:

• Only 17% of elected mayors face a local council where the majority of councillors are not of the same party or political persuasion as he or she;
• In 30% of the mayoralties the elected mayor can rely on a chamber with 80% or more councillors representing his or her own party;
• This becomes more concerning when examining three of the four London boroughs – in Hackney 88% of councillors share the same party at the mayor; in Lewisham this is 98% and in Newham 100% (and has been for eight years).

Local electorates are not necessarily aware of what is happening in their name when such scrutiny is not forthcoming and I have highlighted these matters to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, having spoken to colleagues in other parties. I hope the Government give serious review and consideration to the introduction of proportional representation for councillors where directly elected mayoral systems exist.

It is imperative that organisations running multi-million pound public services, often borrowing treble digit sums in the name of funding local facilities, are given the proper democratic scrutiny which can only be ensured by built-in opposition through proportional representation. Conversely, new arrangements could foster far greater levels of bipartisanship and consensus than we see currently and nurture a fully representative decision-making process where the views of the voting minority are genuinely taken into consideration by elected mayors.

The current directly elected mayoral arrangements are clearly allowing for the hollowing out of local government and could eventually debase and undermine the legitimacy of local democracy. The transformation and modernisation of local government can only continue where overview and scrutiny are guaranteed.