Will a Citizens Convention restore faith in politics?
Posted on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 4:08pm
no responses
Yesterday after a meeting with the UK Ambassador to Moldova, I attended an Unlock Democracy event at Porcullis House. They were launching a Public Accountability and Political Ethics Bill, which they hope will be debated in Westminster. The event had general cross party support, and the speakers included Helena Kennedy, Norman Lamb, Caroline Lucas and Douglas Carswell.
The purpose of the Bill is to establish a system of political ethics in order to restore public confidence; ensure that decisions on the matter are driven by citizens; and to establish a Citizens Convention for that purpose. Their aim is that the Electoral Commission would establish a Citizens Convention of no less that 100 registered electors in the UK, and would make recommendations on the following matters-
payments and expenses of MPs and House of Lords, electoral system, greater power for citizens to hold MPs and members of the House of Lords to account, conduct of business in Parliament, funding of political parties and caps on donations.
The intention of the Bill is that the Prime Minister would ensure that Parliament debates the report or reports by the Convention within 3 months of receiving them, put in practise within 12 months, and that if the PM or the House of Parliament disagrees with them, then 5% of citizens may call for a referendum on the issue.
This is an interesting idea, and an idea that has been tested via the Civic Lotteries system in Canada, whereby a group of citizens were chosen at random from the electoral register to investigate and come up with recommendations on the voting system in Canada.
All politicians present yesterday were supportive of the concept of the Bill- most using the current expenses crisis as an example of the need to engage the public much more widely in policy and in scrutinising government. I did ask a question of the panelists as to why a review of the Monarchy was not included in relation to democratic reform, yet this was not warmly received. I also asked whether they supported open primaries given that most said that closed party lists perpetuated the feeling of isolation by the public when electing their representatives. Most of the panelists were in favour of looking in to this area for development.
I asked during business questions today whether we could have a debate on constitutional reform at the Assembly, but Carwyn Jones didn’t seem too keen for that to happen. I think its vital that we have a say in Wales as to the direction of any changes to the UK’s constitution as it has an affect on how we work as an Assembly. After all, we can share our experiences,-especially in the realm of fixed term parliaments, an open system with regards to expenses, and our voting system- however imperfect it is.
I look forward to progress on this, and Unlock Democracy’s aim of garnering support for this new Bill from all MPs.
