---

Electoral System

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for what she has said. But with regard to this debate she will recognise that the process came to a juddering halt after the Jenkins committee had reported. The undertaking—contained not only in the report to which the noble Baroness has referred, but also in the Labour Party’s manifesto—that a decision between the existing system and an alternative would be put to the vote of the people is one that was conspicuously not implemented, neither then nor subsequently when repeated.