‘It’s time for a change in the voting system’: Former Conservative MP admits on Granada Debate

• What the General Election tells us about the voting system, and how the North West mayors will work with the new government was discussed in the latest of Granada Reports' monthly political programme, The Granada Debate

A former Conservative MP who lost his seat in the general election says it is time to change the voting system.

Nigel Evans lost his seat in the Ribble Valley constituency of Lancashire, after serving parliament for 32 years.

He said: “I never thought I’d say these words but I think it is now time to look at the voting system, when it was a two party state if you like then first past the post worked, but when you four, or five parties in some parts of the country then clearly its broken and it actually distorts grotesquely the results.

“Nigel Farage is right, I think it was just under a million votes you needed to get to get a Reform candidate, and only 20,000 for a Labour one elected."

Referring to the failed Alternative Vote referendum in 2011 he said: “We did have a referendum which was rejected by the public but that was just one form of proportional representation.

“I think we do need, we have time, I don’t think Keir has an incentive to change the voting system tomorrow but let’s just have a look at what variants are there.”

Liberal Democrat MP Tom Morrison, whose party has regularly campaigned for a proportional style voting system, said they would use the new parliament term to push for reform.

The Cheadle representative said: “The Lib Dems have been campaigning for voter reform since day one in our party’s history," he said.

"It’s fair to say the first past the post system is intrinsically unfair, it over represents the two main parties and we would do everything we can in this parliament to make sure that we get voter reform and change that first past the post system.

“We are the biggest third party in the last century, I think we have the power to put pressure on the labour government to implement that change.”

The Liberal Democrats won 72 MPs in the General Election, compared to Reform’s five.

Mr Morrison added: “I think the key thing is, first past the post does not help represent the views of this country.

"There are still too many safe seats which dictate where the parties get their power.

“There are only a few bellwether seats which can actually change a government and that’s simply not fair, and if we need to change that, and if it talks me out of a job but it gives people a proper democratic choice that’s perfectly ok with me.”

Speaking for Labour, newly elected Oliver Ryan, MP for Burnley, is against reforming the voting system.

He said: "It's important to have a connection to a constituency and to represent those people in Burnley and Padiham that have sent me here to do a job.

"Anyone who remembers the European election style will know that people generally didn't really see their MEPs, didn't really know who they were, it was very disconnected."

He added: "The two-party system, as much as it gets a lot of flack from different smaller parties and that's kind of what they're there for, it's about where you compromise.

"So if you go to the polling station and you think I might like a little bit of what Labour are saying on this, but they're not completely perfect on that, but I'm going to hold my nose and vote for them because I don't want the Tories to stay - you're doing the compromising yourself.

"Whereas if you vote for a smaller party you're allowing those people to go off and make coalitions as we've seen in France, Europe and elsewhere, which can basically do what they want behind closed doors."

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