Why is Labour changing the system for electing mayors?

The government has published the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which includes a clause reinstating “the use of the supplementary vote system in elections of mayors and police and crime commissioners”.

- JOHN RENTOUL

Angela Rayner, who is responsible for local government as part of her sprawling deputy-prime-ministerial empire, is reversing the change brought in three years ago by Priti Patel, who as home secretary in the Conservative government was in charge of democracy and the constitution.

Directly elected mayors were brought in by Tony Blair’s government, starting with London, because it had no citywide government after Margaret Thatcher abolished the Greater London Council. Labour chose the supplementary vote system for the election of London mayor, and the same system was adopted for the other elected mayors that followed.

What is the supplementary vote?

It is a bit like the alternative vote - the system that was rejected for elections to the House of Commons in the referendum that took place under the coalition government in 2011 - except that electors have only a first-preference and a second-preference vote.

Under the alternative vote, electors can number all the candidates on the ballot paper in order of preference. The supplementary vote uses a ballot paper with two columns, and the voter uses a cross to mark their first preference in the first column, and another cross to mark their second preference in the second column.