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Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

The timing of this discussion is quite extraordinary. The day after the Prime Minister announced a programme that appears to include a referendum on electoral reform, the Government will have to troop through the Lobby to oppose that very policy. It seems to be a pattern that the Labour party proposes something to get a few votes, and when it has those votes it suddenly forgets about its commitments. Now the Lord Chancellor says that we have to read the Labour manifesto very carefully. As I am going back to the university of Cambridge to teach private law, which involves the close reading of documents, I suppose that my skills will come in handy in the next few weeks. The timing of this discussion is extraordinary for another reason. I think that out in the country people are slowly starting to realise how extraordinary our voting system is, given that there is a prospect of a party gaining more votes than other parties but losing the election in terms of seats. I think that the public mood about the electoral system is just starting to change, but at precisely that point this House is to remove provision for a commitment to a referendum on changing that electoral system.