A RISING star of the Liberal Democrats has called on an urgent reform of voting system within the UK and described the first-past-the-post system as particularly damaging for Scotland.

Wendy Chamberlain, MP for North East Fife, told The Herald on Sunday of her plans to push for constitutional reforms ahead of the party’s spring conference next week.

The MP, who won her seat in the most marginal constituency in the country in the December General Election, said without reforms, the democratic process in the UK risked losing younger voters and those from diverse backgrounds.

It comes after the electoral reform society said the snap election saw millions of voters “totally unrepresented”, with 45% of votes wasted. They analysed the results, determining that it took almost 900,000 votes to elect one Green MP, while each SNP MP needed just 25,882 and 45.3% of the electorate voted for candidates who did not win.

Chamberlain explained: “First-past-the-post is the most undemocratic voting system a democracy can have, and we have to look at what opportunities there are to change that.

“It is particularly concerning to see what the Conservatives are planning around voter registration, demanding ID etc. Democracy should be inclusive and enabling, and those measures do neither of those things.

“They are likely to decrease the likelihood of people voting, and when we look at the demographics of people who do vote it tends to be older, less diverse groups. It is a vicious cycle in terms of people getting engaged.”

“The fact that 45% of the vote in Scotland delivered 80% of the seats, it could be argued that reform is more critical in Scotland and it is more evident that it is not working here. The percentage of wasted votes in Scotland is arguably higher.”

Chamberlain, who is the party's constitutional affairs spokeswoman, will lead on a policy motion at the upcoming conference aimed at fixing "broken politics", with proposals including giving 16-year-olds the vote, making the House of Lords an elected chamber, and replacing first past the post with a "single transferable vote" system.

She said that not only would a change from first-past-the-post be an opportunity to increase diversity among those voting, it would create greater opportunities for diversity among elected politicians too.

The MP, whose husband is an SNP member, revealed further political diversity within her own family when she joked: “ My dad, he is really a sort of Tory and he likes to put out the Daily Mail just to annoy Keith [my husband] and me.

“When I got selected he said ‘When I found out you were getting involved in all this politics stuff I thought you were aff yer heid, but then I look at those eejits on the telly and I think you can be just as good as them’.

“On one hand he has got a point … is our democracy potentially preventing us from getting more competent people? If the Conservatives or Labour find a safe seat they are kind of sorted. It makes it difficult for smaller parties though to work on their diversity.

“The Conservatives can, and have, put good people from diverse backgrounds into seats where they know they will be guaranteed an opportunity to win whereas for ourselves nowhere is a safe sea. One of the things we have got is a good local aspect, but does that prevent us getting a real diversity and breadth of talent?”

The LibDem MP praised the Scottish Government’s progress on electoral reform and said there were elements of how the proportional representation system works in Scotland which could be applied to the Westminster elections. She has also urged Labour’s leadership and deputy leadership candidates to get behind the proposals for change.

She said: “I am supportive of what the Scottish government have done, with giving votes to 16-year-olds and having EU citizens included. There is a degree of cross-party consensus on some aspects too.

“We have written to all Labour the candidates, Keir Starmer has made noises and now he’s talking about a consultation. Ian Murray says he is the ‘change’ candidate so where are you on first past the post, Ian? Labour are facing a potentially devastating performance down south in council elections. Its actually in their interest, it’s in the whole country’s interest, to change the system.”

The Government has proposed various changes system over the past year, none of which involves moving away from first-past-the-post. Critics have argued that proposals to introduce mandatory presentation of photo-ID at polling stations would simply rule out many voters, and reducing the number of constituencies to 600 from 650 would bring together areas with little in common.