Following Andy Burnham’s historic pledge that Labour will have a manifesto commitment to change the First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system used for UK general elections, it is worth remembering that proportional electoral systems are already a familiar part of British democracy for millions of voters.
Five years ago, I wrote a report called Here to Stay: Two Decades of Proportional Representation in Britain. Now, after more than 25 years of proportional representation elections in Britain, it is a timely moment to assess how deeply proportional representation has become embedded in our democratic fabric.
Across Britain, the goal of a representative parliament is not achieved in a single way: Additional Member System (AMS), Single Transferable Vote (STV) and Party List systems all work differently, but each has helped make proportional representation a routine part of elections in the UK.
Proportional Representation entered British elections through Labour’s devolution programme after 1997, with new institutions created in Scotland, Wales and London. It is notable that none of these new institutions were designed to use First Past the Post, but instead the Additional Member System (AMS).
How the Additional Member System makes devolved elections more proportional
The Additional Member System retains an element of First Past the Post, with some representatives elected in single-member constituencies, as in current UK general elections. Crucially, AMS also adds a second route to representation, with an additional set of representatives who are elected in larger constituencies that elect more than one MP via List Proportional Representation.
It is this second part of the system that ensures the overall result is more in line with how the public have voted. For this part of the election, voters receive a ballot paper with a list of parties, with the names of the candidates representing each party on its list underneath. The voter puts a cross next to the party list they want to vote for.
Once the votes in the First Past the Post constituencies have been counted and local representatives elected, the party list votes are then counted. List seats are distributed with the aim of ensuring that the overall share of seats for each party matches the share of the list votes received.
While any system of AMS will produce more proportional election results than FPTP, AMS systems vary in how proportional they are. The higher the share of representatives elected through FPTP constituency seats, the less proportional the result is likely to be.
Scottish Parliament elections consistently saw more proportional outcomes than Senedd Cymru elections held under AMS (see tables below). This is largely due to the fact that 56.6% of Scottish Parliament representatives are elected via First Past the Post seats but the equivalent figure for Senedd Cymru was 66.7%.
To establish the proportionality of an election result, a score can be calculated based on how far the result deviated from how we voted, which is referred to as a DV score. Essentially, the lower the score, the more proportional an election.
Scottish Parliamentary results are consistently closer to how Scots voted while Senedd elections have generally produced more proportional outcomes than Welsh Westminster elections
DV scores based on regional vote share in Scottish Parliament and Senedd elections
How STV gives Scottish local voters more choice
The Single Transferable Vote (STV) was invented in Britain and has been used for Northern Ireland Assembly elections since 1998 and for local elections in Northern Ireland since 1973. However, in the mid-2000s STV arrived on the British mainland when it was first used for Scottish local government elections,.
Professor John Curtice explored STV’s use in the Scottish local elections of 2017, in a report for us called ‘The Power of Preferences’. Local council wards in Scotland elect usually three or four councillors each and the system puts power in the hands of voters. The councillors elected are in line with the political preferences of the area, but voters still elect people as individuals.
Wales’ move from AMS to Party List voting
The Senedd election of May 2026 saw a different system of proportional representation, Party List, used instead.
Under this system, parties put up lists of candidates in each of the 16 new constituencies across Wales. Voters were able to endorse a party’s list of candidates or vote for an independent.
The new system was intended to be more proportional than the system it replaced. As can be seen in the chart above, in its first outing the Party List system performed largely in line with the former system.
We would always prefer a List system to be ‘open’, where voters have an opportunity to influence the individuals from a party’s list who are elected, rather than ‘closed’, where the candidate order is decided solely by the party in an internal process. A review mechanism could now be used to tweak or change the Closed List system ahead of the 2030 elections, but it is currently too early to say what might happen with this.
Proportional Representation is now a familiar part of British democracy
A lot of progress has been made over the course of the last quarter of a century, with proportional representation becoming a standard part of the British political landscape. The next stage is for First Past the Post to leave it entirely.
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