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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I see that that is what the amendment would do. However, it adds not one choice, but a plethora of choices without defining what they are, all with completely different characteristics one from the other and having very little in common except that they can, just about sometimes, be squeezed into the rubric of proportionality. That is why this is not a suggestion that should carry faith. When the referendum campaign comes, I guess that what will happen in the last few weeks is that those who are against any change will say something like, ““If you don't know, vote no””. They will try to capitalise on people’s ignorance. Even those in this Chamber—and there are many sitting around me—who favour first past the post would probably rather it was not decided on that basis. They would probably rather the people took a clear view of the virtues of the electoral system that we have and the virtues of the alternatives and made their verdict on that, which we would all accept as the way forward. This is a recipe for an extremely blurred choice of ill-defined alternatives which is hard to explain and unfair to ask people to grapple with. It is made even worse because unless the referendum date is moved as a result of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, which we passed earlier, they will be grappling with this choice at a time when they are dealing with local elections, new mayors and, in Scotland and Wales, with the all-important question of what their national governments should be. This is a seductive amendment, but it is profoundly misguided and I hope therefore that the House will not countenance it tonight.