Last week we looked at the sections of the Labour and Conservative manifestos that touched on democracy-related issues.

This week, we turn our attention to the other parties that are standing candidates in virtually all seats across Great Britain (the Liberal Democrats, Green Party and Reform UK). We also take a look at the manifestos of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Plaid Cymru, who are standing candidates across all seats in Scotland and Wales respectively.

Reforming the voting system

All five parties make welcome commitments to ditching our antiquated First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system and replacing it with proportional representation for UK general elections.

The Liberal Democrats would ‘introduce proportional representation by the Single Transferable Vote for electing MPs and local councillors in England’. The Greens propose ‘replacing the first-past-the-post system for parliamentary and council elections with a fair and proportional voting system’. Meanwhile, Reform UK highlight how ‘large numbers of voters have no representation in parliament and new parties are shut out of the political system’, which leads them to propose a referendum on PR for the House of Commons.

Plaid Cymru ‘supports proportional representation at UK elections so that a greater proportion of votes are used to elect representatives, rather than wasted’. Plaid indicate they prefer the Single Transferable Vote electoral system and will again push for this in Wales after the Senedd 2026 election.

The SNP say they would ‘reform the voting system by replacing the first past the post system with the Single Transferable Vote’.

Reforming the House of Lords

All three Britain-wide parties make positive commitments to reforming the House of Lords, with the aim of creating a more democratic second chamber. Reform UK indicate they would replace the House of Lords with ‘a much smaller, more democratic second chamber’. The Liberal Democrats would ‘reform the House of Lords with a proper democratic mandate’, while the Greens propose ‘replacing the House of Lords with an elected second chamber’.

Plaid Cymru and the SNP continue to favour the abolition of the House of Lords.

Extending the vote to 16 and 17 year olds

Last week we strongly welcomed Labour’s commitment to extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds in all UK elections. We are pleased that the same commitment features in the manifestos of the Liberal Democrats, Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru.

Giving 16 and 17-year-olds the vote will strengthen and renew our democracy by enfranchising younger people at a habit-forming age, helping to nurture more active citizens for the future.

Voter ID and improving voter registration

The voter ID laws were always a solution in search of a problem, and we have now seen the disproportionate and damaging effect they have had, as thousands of people have already been prevented from casting their ballot due to a lack of accepted ID.

We welcome pledges by the Greens, Liberal Democrats, SNP and Plaid Cymru to scrap this unnecessary policy, so no voter is denied their fundamental democratic right to cast a vote.

The Electoral Reform Society also strongly supports manifesto commitments around improving voter registration. The Liberal Democrats indicate they want to ‘ensure that the UK has an automatic system of inclusion in elections’.

Plaid Cymru would ‘focus efforts on ensuring that all potential eligible voters are on the electoral roll’, while the SNP ‘will push for the introduction of automatic voter registration so that no-one needlessly misses out on their democratic right to vote’.

Other democratic reforms

The parties make various other proposals that we believe would strengthen democracy. The Liberal Democrats propose to ‘take big money out of politics by capping donations to political parties’, while the Greens would ‘introduce a fair system of state funding for political parties to eliminate dependence on large private donations’.

We have long called for Section 106 of the Equality Act to be enforced. This would require political parties to publish diversity data on candidates standing in elections to the House of Commons, Scottish Parliament and Senedd. We are pleased to see the Liberal Democrats make this commitment. Meanwhile, the Greens say they want ‘measures to make parliament more representative, particularly of women, people of colour and disabled people’.

We are also pleased to see both the Greens and Liberal Democrats proposing the strengthening of rules around lobbying. Both parties also make welcome commitments to strengthening the independence of the Electoral Commission.

Finally, we believe that citizen’s assemblies and other forms of participatory democracy have the potential to strengthen our democracy and it is therefore good to see a commitment from the Liberal Democrats to ‘establish national and local citizens’ assemblies to ensure the public are fully engaged in finding solutions to the greatest challenges we face’.

Read the ERS ‘Manifesto For Democracy’ here. 

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This week we had startling and deeply concerning news about the state of our democracy. A study from the National Centre for Social Research concluded that: ‘All in all, it appears that people’s trust in governments and politicians, and confidence in their systems of government is as low now as it has ever been over the last fifty years, if not lower.’ 

In short, our democracy is in poor health. The research outlined in stark terms the size of the task when it comes to arresting the decline and rebuilding trust in our politics. 

We’re reviewing all the offers from the major parties with this in mind. Labour’s manifesto, released today, is an encouraging first step. But considering the mountain the next government will need to climb to rebuild that trust, is it enough?

Extending the voter to 16 and 17 year olds

The Electoral Reform Society has long campaigned to end the political inequality that has opened up in our country where Scottish and Welsh 16 and 17-year-olds can vote in their national parliamentary and council elections, but their counterparts in England are totally excluded from the franchise. So we strongly welcome Labour’s commitment to extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds in all UK elections.

Giving 16 and 17-year-olds the vote will also strengthen and renew our democracy by enfranchising younger people at a habit-forming age when it can be accompanied by civic education to help them cast that all-important first vote.
 
Reforming the House of Lords

We agree with the statement in the manifesto that reform of the Lords is ‘long-overdue and essential’ and welcome that Labour is pledging to take the first steps to tackle some of the worst excesses of the upper chamber, such as its ballooning size and the fact we still have 92 all-male hereditary peers who wield influence over legislation due to birth-right.

However, we do have concerns about the potentially arbitrary impact of an age cap at 80 for peers, as some are still very active and making valuable contributions over that age. Also, for peers starting their career in their late 20s and early 30s, as we now have, that is still effectively a guaranteed 50 years of unelected legislating, which is an absurd situation for a modern democracy.

While we welcome that Labour is proposing to take initial steps on Lords reform, the proposals in the manifesto alone fall short of addressing the fundamental problem with the second chamber: the unchecked and undemocratic way new members are added, with prime ministers able to stuff unlimited numbers of new peers into the Lords on a whim. The last three prime ministers alone have created more than 120 new peers between them.

We agree with Keir Starmer’s pledge that the current House of Lords should ultimately be replaced by an elected house. This would place the power to decide who sits in the upper chamber of Parliament shaping our laws in the hands of the British people, rather in the hands of whoever is sitting in Downing Street.

Voter ID and improving voter participation

The voter ID laws were always a solution in search of a problem, and we have now seen the disproportionate and damaging effect they have had, as thousands of people have already been prevented from casting their ballot due to a lack of accepted ID.

We welcome Labour’s pledge to address the confusing inconsistencies in what ID can be used at polling stations, however, we would urge that this unnecessary policy is scrapped altogether so no voter is denied their fundamental democratic right to cast a vote.

The Electoral Reform Society also strongly supports the manifesto commitment to ‘improve voter registration’. The best way to do this is to implement Automatic Voter Registration, which is due to be introduced in Wales, across the whole of the UK.

Reforming Westminster and the voting system

The Labour Party has already identified the problem – its National Policy Forum agreed that Westminster’s First Past the Post voting system is driving the ‘distrust and alienation we see in politics’, and in 2022 the Labour Party backed moving to a fairer proportional voting system for UK elections at its conference. 

It now has a responsibility to bring in the solution and act by ensuring we move to a fairer, proportional voting system that ensures every part of the country matters at elections, not just the handful of ‘swing seats’ that change hands between the parties. 

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The launch of the Conservative manifesto yesterday was conspicuously light on democratic policy with little mention by way of reforms desperately needed to strengthen our democracy.  

Voter ID Policy

The Conservatives made only one proposal to alter Voter ID which is to introduce Veterans ID cards as a valid form of voter ID. An issue we highlighted after an Afghan veteran was prevented from voting in the 2024 local elections. However, this does not address any of the underlying issues with this damaging and disproportionate policy. Even though there is overwhelming evidence shows that it is hindering access to voting rather than improving it.  

In the 2023 local elections 14,000 voters were prevented from exercising their right to vote due to invalid ID. This is not to mention the fact that this number is likely smaller than the actual amount of people who could not vote because of Voter ID and so did not show up to their polling booth.  

We have long campaigned for the unnecessary barrier to voting that Voter ID is to be scrapped. If not, for on the day verification of voters to be allowed so as many people as possible have access to the right to vote.  

English Devolution

The Conservatives commitment to English devolution is to be commended. However, the commendable introduction of regional English mayors is undermined by the change to the voting system used for them and for Police & Crime Commissioners. By replacing the Alternative Vote used to elect them with First Past the Post they are operating under a reduced mandate; an unsettling decision given the large budgets that regional mayors are in charge of.  

We also welcome the commitment to the principle of decisions being made as close to the communities they serve as possible. However, there are no proposals for the democratic changes needed to put this into practice which is disappointing.  

First Past the Post and the voting age

By maintaining the status quo of committing to First Past the Post over a proportionally representative voting system, the Conservative manifesto is misguided and would continue to undermine any mandate a government may achieve.  

In keeping First Past the Post as our voting system the UK would continue to perpetuate a politics that places the focus of an incoming government on only a few ‘swing seats’ which change hands between parties at elections. This leaves huge swathes of seats across the country politically ignored and left behind.  

The missing pledge: House of Lords reform

Finally, there was a noticeable gap in policy pledges on the House of Lords. This is despite widespread, popular support for reform of the outdated and bloated Chamber. It is clear that the Lords, in its current form, is unsustainable. With around 800 members it is in the absurd situation of being the second largest legislative chamber in the world, second only to China’s National People’s Congress.  

For there to be no mention of reforming the Lords is disappointing given that it is essential in order to move the UK parliament into the 21st century and improve trust in our politics.

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