It proposes to do this by changing the way in which the state helps candidates to communicate during elections. At the moment, all candidates are allowed to send a single election communication to every registered voter via the Royal Mail, paid for by the state. The group behind the draft bill proposes to retain that principle, but instead of candidates sending separate leaflets out, all the communications would be compiled into a single booklet. Such a system is already used for mayoral and Greater London Authority elections.

The catch for political parties would be that in marginal constituencies they would not be able to use the so-called freepost in the targeted way that they often do at present; as they are entitled to send a leaflet to each elector, they frequently send out different election communications to each person in the household - often on different days. A family might end up receiving 3-4 (or even more) different pieces of literature through the door that way, spread over several weeks.

Even if switching to a booklet system did not save money however (and the authors of the bill estimate that it will save £48 million over six years), there are advantages to it. Candidates in less marginal constituencies who typically get less resources would be given a much more equal platform from which to promote themselves. There would be far fewer blackspots in which voters get either no information at all or only election communications from the candidate who is certain to win.

That said, the proposers of the joint bill propose to reallocate the savings this change would generate and invest them into an alternative model for party funding. Parties would receive income from three sources: a small amount for each vote they receive in each Westminster, European Parliament and devolved legislature election; a matched funding system for small donations up to £5; and tax relief on donations up to £1,000. In exchange, an annual cap on all donations from individuals and corporations would be applied (party affiliated trade unions would be treated as a special case) - eventually to be set at £10,000. They are also proposing to reduce the amount parties can spend at each general election by 15%.

From Unlock Democracy’s point of view, these proposals are, potentially, a game changer. At a stroke they change the debate from being about whether we can afford to reform party funding to which type of party funding would work best in the UK. As they stand, they represent a significant leap forward and one which it has been disappointing that the government’s formal cross-party talks have failed to make in more than a year of deliberation.

We don’t disagree with all of it. As an organisation, we’d like both the spending and donations caps to be lower, while recognising that you have to start from somewhere. Our biggest problem with the proposals is the focus on a money-per-vote system.

Money-per-vote systems are attractive primarily because they are simple to calculate. We have two main concerns with them however. The first is that a vote for a party’s candidate in an election can’t be inferred to be support for that party - especially given our current voting system for Westminster elections. Tactical votes and votes from loyal supporters will be treated the same in cash terms. By contrast, smaller parties will be hit by a double whammy of not only having the voting system deny them seats but the funding system deny them funds.

Secondly, money-per-vote systems don’t especially reward political parties for improving behaviour; they don’t give parties an incentive to engage with the electorate. As such, this money will be given to centralised parties and, broadly speaking, is likely to be spent by the party centrally. We may have a cleaner political system thanks to the donation caps, but it won’t be one which the public are any less alienated from.

For these reasons, we prefer systems which are more strongly related to actual support and which provide parties with a greater incentive to go out and recruit and generally engage with the public. Matched funding does this by ensuring that for each membership fee or small donation they collect, they get to double their money. For this reason, we’d like to see the matched funding system increased for donations up to a limit of £50 instead of £5 (to ensure the total spend balanced out, the money-per-vote element would be reduced).

The bill’s authors are keen to stress that it is only a draft, and that they are keen to hear people’s opinions on it. They’ve launched a website, www.fundingukdemocracy.org through which you can give them your opinions. We’d strongly encourage people to submit their own ideas there.

The pressure is now back on David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg to stop dithering and agree a way forward.

What does this mean for UK politics in the future? Well, UKIP are certainly likely to do well in next year’s European Elections but beyond that it is too early to speculate. Right now, the real issue is how our current voting system has managed to cope. The answer is: not well.

Regardless of your political views, it is absurd that by splitting the rightwing Conservative vote, UKIP’s success might lead to leftwing candidates sneaking through the middle. This sort of vote splitting can lead to some very quirky results. In this year’s elections for example, one candidate in Cornwall won his seat with less than 20% of the vote.

Over the last few weeks, the Electoral Reform Society has done sterling work highlighting the problem of what it calls the “Rotten Boroughs” - local authorities in which there is effectively no opposition. But the other problem with our current voting system is that it often exaggerates party support, leading to parties to hold a majority of councillors with relatively small levels of support. In Essex, for example, the Conservatives have retained a majority despite getting just 35% of the popular vote across the county as a whole.

Of course, there is nothing new in any of this, but the rise of a new party has significantly increased the number of places where it is a problem. It is increasingly looking as if the trend towards multi-party politics is inexorable; indeed, the two party system which dominated party politics in the 50s and 60s was merely a blip. Since the formation of the Labour Party at the end of the 19th century, three-plus party politics has actually been the norm.

Our current plurality voting system doesn’t cope well with this reality. The wrong candidates win, seats are left uncontested, votes are wasted and parties are handed unjustifiable hegemonic control over councils. And the more active political parties we have with significant support, the worse it will get. But in Westminster, the political establishment shows little interest in sorting this mess out. So what can we do?

One option lies in a piece of legislation which Unlock Democracy has helped campaign for for years, which is finally starting to gain momentum. The Sustainable Communities Act is a law which lets people demand that powers currently in the hands of Whitehall to be devolved locally. More than just a consultation exercise, the government is legally required to consider the proposals which emerge from the process and can’t simply ignore them.

The proposals that our Local Works team have looked at so far have included giving local authorities greater control over betting shops, supermarkets, pubs and post offices, but the act can be used to demand powers to improve the health of democracy at a lot level as well.

What we propose is that local authorities - and the people who live in them - should be given the right to pick their own voting system. A similar right already exists for local authorities in New Zealand. In England and Wales, people already have the right to change the system of government in their local authority from a councillor executive model to a directly elected mayor model (and vice versa); why shouldn’t the same principle apply to the voting system itself?

Specifically, what we’re proposing is the following:

1) The UK government should give local authorities in England and Wales the power to decide which electoral system should be used to elect council members of that local authority, and give the public the right to petition their local authority to call for a referendum to change the electoral system used to elect their council members.

2) Such a referendum would have to be held if at least 5% of registered electors resident in that local authority petition for one. Following a decision to change the voting system, the system could not be changed again until two full rounds of elections had taken place (typically 8 years).

Would you be interested in helping us to campaign for such a proposal? Unlike many of our campaigns, which depend on the government to take action, in this case we will be focusing our attention on local councillors. With the Lib Dems, UKIP and the Greens all in favour of changing the voting system, and with so many councils with no single party in overall control, we believe we have a good chance of persuading some of them to formally propose this change. The government can of course say no, but the law means they would have to try to reach agreement first; and what is all their talk about localism worth if they won’t even give local authorities this right?

Of course, there is an argument that the voting system should be changed as a whole, as has already been done in Scotland (Northern Ireland has also used a system of proportional representation for quite some time). But that will require a sea change in attitudes at Westminster. With the system breaking apart and becoming increasingly erratic, it may come sooner than cynics think, but it’s still a big task. Demanding the right to change the voting system at a local level is something we can do now and we already have a mechanism to force the debate.

So, what do you think? Please let us know in the comments below.

You can read Unlock Democracy’s evidence here, and Local Works’s submission here.

Both organisations feel that the Act is overall a good thing, radically changing the direction of power and decision-making in England. There have been problems with long delays in implementing parts of the Act, in particular with the production of Local Spending Reports, a vital element of transparency which is not happening as required by the law.

We hope the problems we’ve highlighted can be addressed to see the Sustainable Communities Act become more robust than ever!

The early Blair government actually considered quite a lot of pilot studies to look at ways to increase turnout, ranging from weekend voting, online voting, voting at supermarkets, and so on. Almost all of these were failures. It is tempting to dismiss ideas such as a voter lottery in the same way, and to call on political parties to instead focus on significant structural changes, such as reform of the voting system.

I don’t share that position for a simple reason: while voter turnout and democratic reform are both good things, they are not as closely related as many would like to believe. Most research has found that although there is a link between turnout and voting system, it isn’t actually that strong - a few percentage points. By contrast, even from constituency to constituency, turnout within the UK can vary tremendously. Age and social class seem to be much bigger indicators than voting system.

If people’s decision whether or not to vote was a matter of rational choice, we would probably expect turnout to be much lower. Most seats are safe seats after all, or at best contests between two parties. The fact that as many people vote as they do is not therefore rational, but one of social norms. The decline in turnout over the past few decades seems to be primarily due to a decline in the idea of seeing voting as a civic duty.

It therefore follows that any policy which can help to reverse that trend is worth considering. The evidence from Labour’s experiments in the 90s and 00s suggests that making voting more “convenient” won’t work - if anything such policies simply reinforce the notion that voting is a frivolous activity. Schemes however which celebrate and reinforce the idea that we live in a democracy and that democracy is precious are much more worthy of consideration.

How do we do that? That’s the question. There certainly isn’t a magic bullet. Encouraging political parties to engage more is one part of it; better citizenship education is another. As part of a package, electoral reform almost certainly has a role to play by ending single party fiefdoms and encouraging greater competition; but it won’t be simply because people decide that their vote is worth more. It might also be the case that until we have greater political engagement, we won’t be able to wring voting reform out of the political classes; the AV referendum showed quite how few people actually care about it as an issue, despite the fact that it affects our lives on a daily basis.

So what about a voter lottery? Such a scheme is about more than just giving people an incentive to vote; it’s about sending out a message that we value democratic participation as a society. It would be a simple way to thank people for voting. And it needn’t even cost that much, especially if companies were encouraged to donate prizes.

We shouldn’t write off such ideas as gimmicky and meaningless too quickly. There is no panacea, but anything which redresses the predominantly negative press that democratic participation gets is worth considering.

Unlock Democracy Merseyside & West Cheshire held a hugely successful public meeting on Saturday 13th July to answer these questions. Taking on the debate was a panel comprised of local politicians and academics: Stephen Twigg (Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby), Lord Mike Storey (Former Leader, Liverpool City Council), Dr Stuart Wilks-Heeg (Senior Lecturer in Social Policy and former Director of Democratic Audit) and our director Peter Facey. Speaking to a packed room with over 40 people attending including the deputy Mayor of Wirral. We were pleased to draw in a political diverse audience with councillors and party activists attending.

The depth and scope of meeting was broad with a high level of audience contributing to the debates. The nature of how much ‘hard’ enforceable power local council have was scrutinised. Many councillors attending raised the issue that their powers were primarily centred round voting on budgets.

The panel explored the need for a joined up approach across Merseyside with a recognition that the North West was too large and Liverpool too small for self governance.  It was acknowledged that there is a need for the people of Merseyside to have a greater control over their lives. For our Director Peter Facey

"The meeting showed that the people of Merseyside are the experts of their problems and the solutions to them".

Creating devolved local power into a very political place like Merseyside only happen with a cross party approach will work and that democracy is the answer not the problem.

There is a need for a genuine look at how Merseyside’s democracy works, how it can better involve people. Lord Storey kindly noted

Thank goodness Unlock Democracy exists. We need a cross party group that can champion campaigns for democratic renewal and can expose the excesses of our Democracy. We see increasingly openness and accountability being taken away from people. Little wonder that more and more of us are turned off from democratic involvement.

The recent talk of city deals are a real opportunity for democratic reformers to make for case for decentralising power. We should be exploring the accountably problems of the present directly elected mayor model.

Speaking after the meeting Geoff Woodcock, Chair of the Merseyside and West Cheshire Group of Unlock Democracy enthusiastically said

“Reform of  democracy in Local Government is alive and kicking in Merseyside! We held a standing-room only meeting and had a very lively exchange of views. In particular, research-based proposals for reform were strongly advocated by Dr Stuart Wilks-Heeg, former director of Democratic Audit, many of which were strongly endorsed by the other members of the panel and the many activists present.”

A key message from the meeting is there is a real need for cross party/no party approach to democratic reform. As a result of the meeting Unlock Democracy Merseyside and West Cheshire will be campaigning to get people to participate in the upcoming democracy review facing Merseyside.

There was wide variation in the answers we received about national and geographic identity. For Scots, their predominant identity was Scottish (34%) closely followed by British (31%). However, Welsh respondents (41%) chose a predominantly British identity. These respondents actually had the strongest British identity, followed by respondents from the South West (41%) and England East (39%).

Those who had the strongest English identity were found in the East Midlands (41%) followed by those in the North East (40%), compared to the UK average of 28%. This was the most popular identity for people from these regions. The weakest English identity was found in Greater London (23%).

People from the South West (19%), from Greater London (18%) and the South East (18%) had the strongest European identity, compared with the UK average of 14%.

The strongest local, city or county identity was felt among people from Yorkshire and the Humber (14%), North West England (14%) and Greater London (14%), compared to the UK average of 7%. In Yorkshire and the Humber, this is presumably because of the strong Yorkshire identity. For people in the North West, this is likely to include identities such as Mancunian, Liverpudlian and Lancastrian. Finally, people from Greater London may identify with being a Londoner. By contrast, in Wales, no-one said they had a local, city or county identity.

We included a separate category for “Cornish” but only 2% of people from the South West said they identified in this way. To what extent this is representative, it is hard to tell.

People from Greater London were most likely to feel they did not have a national or geographic identity at all (3%), compared to the UK average of 2%.

The second part asked questions about a constitutional convention, a forum to discuss greater English devolution and resolving the West Lothian question.

Across the whole of the UK, 41% rated a constitutional convention as ‘high priority’ (rated it a 8, 9 or 10 out of 10) - the median rating was 7 out of 10. Scottish people and people from the North East were more likely to view a constitutional convention as a high priority. Of those who identified as Scottish, 68% felt it is high priority (median 9). For people from the North East, 56% felt it was a high priority (median 8). People in Yorkshire and the Humber gave a constitutional convention the lowest priority with only 31% rating a constitutional convention as a high priority (median 6).

Overall 34% (median 6) rated a forum to discuss greater English devolution a high priority. Again, Scottish people (54%, median 8) and people from the North East (49%, median 8) were more likely to view this as a high priority. In Yorkshire and the Humber, only 24% felt a greater English devolution was a high priority (median 5).

Finally, we asked what people thought should be done to resolve the “West Lothian question”. This refers to the debate of whether MPs from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland can vote on English legislation that only affects England (see our director Peter Facey’s recent article on the topic). The most popular (58%) solution was that “Votes on legislation only affecting England should be reserved for English MPs only.” Respondents were asked whether powers should be devolved to an English Parliament, to English regional government and/or to English cities and counties. The regions most in favour of devolution down to the level of English cities and counties were Yorkshire and the Humber (18%) and the North East (16%). Scotland was most in favour of devolution down to the level of English regional government (24%), followed by the West Midlands (19%). Scotland was also most in favour of establishing an English Parliament were Scotland (25%), closely followed by Greater London (23%).

There was great variation in how our respondents identified themselves and what geographical identities they saw themselves as having. The responses also suggest that where you live has an impact on what identity you have. Living in a different part of the UK means you are more or less likely to see yourself as having certain identities, such as Scottish, British, English or European. Some of the views in the survey were found to be contradictory, for example people from Greater London had the weakest English identity but were most the supportive of an English Parliament out of all English regions. The survey suggests that if you have a strong local, city or county identity, you are likely to favour devolution down to that level. This was the case in Yorkshire and the Humber and in the North East, which had the strongest local, city or county identities and were also most in favour of devolution down to the level of English cities and counties.

Additionally, the survey found that Scottish people and people from the North East were more likely to rate a constitutional convention and a forum to discuss greater English devolution as a high priority. This may be considered a high priority for the Scottish due to the fact that Scottish devolution is a current issue. A constitutional convention and a discussion of English devolution may clarify the issues around the potential Scottish devolution. For people in the North East this is likely to be a priority because of their proximity to Scotland and the potential effect Scottish devolution may have on them. As mentioned above, people in the North East were strongly in favour of devolution down to the level of English cities and counties. The North East is furthest away from central government in London, so their support of a constitutional convention and a forum to discuss greater English devolution further emphasises their support for greater devolution in England.

Download the data summary (Excel format).

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We're delighted to report that this motion was a resounding success! Earlier today, Cornwall councillor Alex Folkes tweeted:

Proposal for Cornwall Council to take on board the Sustainable Communities Act passed unanimously #ccwebcast

— Alex Folkes (@alexfolkes) April 16, 2013

A unanimous vote represents a major success, and we'd like to thank the hundreds of Cornish people who participated in the action. You helped make a difference and let Cornish councillors know just how important it is to opt in to using the Act. 

As for Cornwall Council, we'd like to congratulate you on making this decision. We look forward to seeing what you do with the Act!

The key lesson to take from the conference was that we need to keep talking, building links and find new ways to provide support as a national organisation. Driven by this, a week after the conference we set about organising the first Grassroots Democracy meetup. Our idea to create a regular events, for group organisers and activists to come and hear about Unlock Democracy’s campaigns, to help us make achievable goals for local activism and to keep the conversations started at the activist conference going.

Two months later we put the kettle on, got the biscuits out and opened the Unlock Democracy’s door on Saturday. Trialing in London with the ambition to be hosting Grassroots Democracy meetups across the country - would this work? We weren’t disappointed! People came to represent groups from London, Leicester, Birmingham and Liberal Democrats for Electoral Reform, as well as bright eyed new activists who will be taken into the fold of London for Democracy.

Lots of positive conversation came out the afternoon, as we shared ideas and experiences of campaigning. It was clear that groups had been getting active since the conference, with this ranging from getting websites set up and meeting more regularly to Leicester proudly hosting two public meetings in the last two months. We agreed there in a tendency for groups to veer towards being inert, as we all love to debate issue surrounding democratic reform and acknowledged that we need to balance debate with pulling new people in and taking in action. 

We discussed how activities like socials and public meetings can be a great source for recruiting new activists. Alternatively they can be action-focused with the view to shaping the political agenda locally. Of course, done well, local activities can be both.

Collectively we set about setting goals for all the groups, with the group members present committing to get their group to be one of the first to inspire groups lead in organising actions locally. 2013 is set to give us a lot opportunities to campaign locally for democratic reform. Key events are a great chance to organise round. Ideas have started forming around the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta (in 2015), International Democracy Day, Parliament Week and celebrating key figures like Emmeline Pankhurst’s birthday. 

We can make a real impact with hosting public meetings and getting politicians back facing the public. The government’s pending response to ‘the next big scandal waiting to happen’ - lobbying, is a real chance for democratic reformers to make an impact. This area we need local groups running public meetings on and calling for a robust statutory register of lobbyists. Ensuring that public meeting have a focus is a critical part of campaigning. We talked about using public meeting as a way for getting people to handwrite letters to their MPs. A lower level activity for groups is to host teach in’s or letter writing session with pizza.

An area that raised a lot of interest was the Sustainable Communities Act (SCA). Steve Shaw our lead campaigner for SCA committed himself to coming to talk to groups about how they can use the act as a campaigns tool. One idea we are currently exploring is the possibility of using the powers in the act to campaign for electoral reform at a local level, and this provoked a lot of discussion. Unlock Democracy is currently writing a draft Electoral Choice proposal, we really appreciated getting feedback and hearing people’s own ideas for using the Act.

So there you have it! We covered a lot in just a few hours, enjoyed a few biscuits and laid groundwork for the future. If we can get 50% groups organising just 50% of these activities, we will go along way to building a successful, effective and inclusive democratic reform movement. But the main thing to take from the day is we need to have fun and keep pulling in new people.

We still have a lot of work to do to build the democratic reform movement but Unlock Democracy is committed to giving the necessary support. The meetup showed that we can do a lot and together we can get democratic reform on both the national and local agenda.

Our next meetup will be in Leicester hosted jointly with Unlock Democracy Leicestershire.

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who came along and made Saturday such an enjoyable day.

“After British forces recaptured the Falkland islands and South Georgia her popularity soared, allowing her to call a general election in 1983 which she won by a landslide.”

Sky News is not the only media agency to make this claim over the last few days. But it is completely wrong.

The fact is that the Conservative Party’s share of the vote in the 1983 general election went down, from 43.9% in 1979 to 42.4% in 1983. There was even a drop in turnout, with the percentage of people eligible to vote doing so going from 76% to 72.7%. Despite this, it increased its parliamentary majority from 44 to 144.

How was this possible? Very simply, it was the voting system wot won it. The Labour Party and the SDP-Liberal Alliance split the opposition vote and the Conservative Party was able to come through the middle.  

You can blame the foundation of the SDP for this, thus splitting the Labour vote. You can also blame the Labour Party’s continued failure to attract mainstream support. What you can’t argue is that it was a result of the Conservatives’, and Margaret Thatcher’s, popularity.

One of the most pernicious aspects of the single member plurality system which we use to elect the House of Commons is that it allows unpopular governments to labour under the illusion that they command a popular mandate. Margaret Thatcher was by no means alone in this respect; by 2005, the Tony Blair government’s popular support had dropped to just 35.2% yet still managed a parliamentary majority of 66 (55.2% of the chamber). We certainly should not disregard Tony Blair or Margaret Thatcher’s considerable political skill and ability to unite their own parties, but they were not the overwhelmingly popular leaders their advocates make out and their ability to game the system has arguably lead to deep and damaging divisions within the country.

Single member plurality only really works in a two party system, something which the UK only fairly briefly had during the fifties and sixties. With UKIP rising in popularity, predictions that the coalition government’s unpopularity will lead to a return to a two-party system look like they will be proven wrong. In the 1970s, many Conservatives recognised this was a real problem and supported moving to a proportional system. Sadly, one of Margaret Thatcher’s legacies was to marginalise such talk within her own party.

One of the big lobbying scandals is something that we have known about for years but which no-one seems willing to tackle: the fact that members of the House of Lords are free to work as professional lobbyists.  There are a number of peers who work for outside commercial interests in the House of Lords, in some cases they even represent foreign governments.

Take Lord Blencathra as an example, who is paid by the Cayman Islands to be the Director of the Cayman Islands Government Office in the United Kingdom. If he was a private individual this would not be an issue, but he is a member of the UK legislature.  He gets to vote on our laws, ask questions of government ministers and even propose legislation. Rather than using this privileged position to serve the interests of the people of the United Kingdom he is representing the interests of the Cayman Islands.

Lord Blencathra has not broken any rules, but those rules are wrong. The current situation is corrupting and puts doubt about whose interests peers are serving.

Today the Guardian published a story about the Register of Interests of Lords Members' Staff that shows just how far the influence of the lobbying industry has spread in our parliament. Members of the House of Lords don't get paid staff in the same way that MPs do and many depend on volunteers and outside groups to support them in their work (although with a £300 tax free daily allowance intended to cover out of pocket expenses when working as a peer, they can certainly afford to make a contribution).

According to the register around 100 peers have given passes have to consultants, lobbyists, or senior managers and executives. On the list amongst the charities and pressure groups we have come to expect are the Telegraph's head of public affairs, Edward Taylor, and Richard Ritchie, until recently the director of UK government affairs for BP. These are not the normal sort of person you expect to be working as a researcher or assistant.

A parliamentary pass may sound like a small thing but it gives the holder unsupervised access to the whole parliamentary estate and of course to parliamentarians. For anyone lobbying it is a huge advantage. There is a real danger the current system advantages certain causes, creates conflicts of interest, undermines the independence of peers and risks leaving the public with a poor perception of parliament.

The government is apparently still considering how to respond to the consultation on a statutory register of lobbyists.  We will continue to push them to introduce a robust register as a matter of urgency. However they can take action on lobbying in the House of Lords now.  What other country would allow members of the legislature to act as paid lobbyists? Why should the appointed members of our chamber, who get their positions on the basis of patronage be treated more leniently than elected MPs? 

In the meantime, we’re asking people to write to the leaders of the main parties in the House of Lords to demand they take action to sort out lobbying in their own backyard. Visit our action page to get started.