The Government has set out an ambitious programme of reforms to transform politics and redistribute power away from the centre.

The purpose of the Bill is to:

Provide for a greater public say over how they are represented in Parliament, improve the reputation of Parliament and provide for more parliamentary control over the Government.


The main benefits of the Bill would be:

•Giving the people a say in the electoral system used to elect MPs.

•Giving every vote more equal weight by ensuring that constituency sizes are more equal.

•Reducing the costs of Parliament through reducing the size of the House of Commons.

•Removing the right of the Prime Minister to decide on the date of the General Election for narrow party advantage.

•Making MPs more answerable to the people who voted for them.

The main elements of the Bill are:

•To provide for a referendum on a choice between First Past the Post and the Alternative Vote as the system for electing the House of Commons, and change the electoral system for the Commons to the Alternative Vote if the result of the referendum supports this.

•To provide for a reduction in the number of seats in the House of Commons and more equally sized constituencies, through changes to the rules for boundary reviews to enable the Boundary Commissions to draw up the new constituencies during the current Parliament.

•To provide for fixed, rather than maximum, term parliaments of five years and to provide that the next General Election shall be on 7 May 2015.

•To provide that a Prime Minister can seek an earlier dissolution of Parliament only if 55 per cent of the membership of the House of Commons have voted in favour of this.

•To provide that where an MP is judged to have engaged in serious wrongdoing, constituents can petition for the ‘recall’ of the MP. If more than 10 per cent of electors sign the petition, then a by-election will be held in the seat.

Related documents:

None.

Existing legislation in this area is:

Fixed term parliaments

•Septennial Act 1715
•Parliament Act 1911

Recall (legislation relates to disqualification from the House of Commons)

•Representation of the People Act 1981
•Representation of the People Act 1983

•House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975
•Mental Health Act 1983
•Insolvency Act 1986

Referendum

•Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000

Parliamentary boundaries

•Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986

Devolution:

Any legislation will apply to the United Kingdom. All proposals are reserved in all three of the devolution settlements.