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Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Lords, it has been one of my lifetime’s ambitions to debate voting systems with the noble Lord, and now I have the opportunity. I am afraid that it will be rather short, because we had quite a long debate in Committee and my noble friend Lady Morgan then explained that every voting system has advantages and disadvantages. The noble Lord has explored some of those advantages and disadvantages this evening. I agree with him about the need for appropriate systems. I was surprised that he is still having to do research on the supplementary vote system. I thought that he gave an absolute masterclass on the supplementary vote system in Committee, but I listened with interest to what he said. We acknowledge that there are arguments both for and against the various voting systems. I do not need to go on a great deal, because the noble Lord will know that the reason why we have proposed using the supplementary vote system for the elected executives is that mayors are elected by the supplementary vote system. It was as simple and consistent as that; we believed that it was appropriate to use the same voting system. I have no argument in my text about the alternative vote system because, as I said, we made the decision. All that I want to put on record is that we commissioned the review. The result will be announced before the end of the year. It will consider the experience of new voting systems used in the UK since 1997, which is why it includes the London Mayor and the supplementary vote system. The noble Lord would be extremely surprised—probably bewildered—if I attempted to pre-empt the findings of the review by encouraging the introduction of further changes to the electoral system. He spoke very seriously about those different ways of voting. It is an important part of the democratic process that we get the right system for the job in hand and I appreciate that his remarks are on the record. I am sure that he looks forward to receiving a copy of the review. We will no doubt pore over it together but, in the mean time, I hope that he will withdraw his amendment.