The current scandal of MPs’ expenses and allowances has triggered a popular demand for reform and some people think that proportional representation (PR) should be an important part of a reform package. Beneficial though PR would be in other ways, it would do little or nothing in itself to solve the expenses scandal.

STV, however, would have a very direct effect. Unlike other PR systems, STV would abolish safe seats; all candidates would have to compete for election with rivals from other parties and their own. If voters felt that Joe Bloggs MP had exploited the expenses system, they could replace him with another candidate from the same, or another, party or with an independent without any risk of splitting the party vote. In practice, voters may not need to replace MPs because knowing they were going to have to compete for their own seats would probably make them much more careful with their expenses in the first place. Of course, for STV to have this effect, voters would need legitimate access to MPs’ expenses claims so there would have to be complete transparency; they would have to be published in detail fairly soon after being made.