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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

That might shock some of my noble friends. However, I was astonished to read in this morning’s Guardian a letter from the leading lights of the Labour Party, including many Labour Peers, who support AV in a very different way from that of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. Therefore, he has not quite won over all Labour Party members since 1989. He prayed in aid the noble Lord, Lord Plant—who was not present at the time but appeared later and has now gone again, which is a pity—who was one of the signatories to the letter in the Guardian. Whatever the Plant commission thought then, the noble Lord, Lord Plant, now thinks that AV is the right system to champion and he will vote for it. Before I get into the detail of what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, intends by Amendments 22 and 25, I must stress again that it is fundamentally important that the referendum gives the public a clear choice about the systems that they are asked to choose between. That is the only way that we will get a clear result that will allow voters truly to express what they want. We cannot simply ask the people whether they want ““an alternative voting system””; we need to be honest with them right from the start by letting them know exactly which alternative system they are being asked to vote on. A key problem with Amendment 22 is that, by its very nature, it does not make clear whether the revised question would ask whether voters want an alternative to the current voting system—meaning a system that is not first past the post—or, more specifically, the alternative vote electoral system. Consequently, the noble Lord's amendment raises a very significant risk that some members of the public might vote in favour of ““an alternative vote system”” because they want something different from the current first-past-the-post system, but they may think that they are voting for the single transferable vote system or the additional member system—they might not want a form of ““the”” alternative vote system at all. The crucial change of ““the”” to ““an”” would make the question so ambiguous that the result of the referendum could be impossible to decipher. We would not know what the people really wanted at all. Given the noble Lord’s interest in the various alternative vote systems—in particular, the supplementary vote system to which Amendment 25 refers—he may intend by Amendments 22 and 25 to debate the merits of those different types of alternative vote systems. The noble Lord referred to his amendment concerning a committee of inquiry that we discussed on the first Committee day. I do not wish to reopen that debate, but I understand that the point that he made then is at least tangential to the point that he is making today. We had a full debate on that then, so I will not reopen it. However, a number of noble Lords have suggested—including, indeed, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton—that they would welcome a clear explanation of why the Government are putting forward this specific form of AV. I will address that point here, which I hope will reassure the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, on why the alternative vote system set out in the Bill is the right choice to put before the public in the referendum. The type of alternative vote system specified in the Bill that will come into force if there is a yes vote in the referendum is the optional preferential alternative vote system. We believe that to be the right form of alternative vote to put before the people, because we believe that it is right to allow electors to choose to mark as many or as few preferences as they wish. The optional preferential alternative vote system is different from the system used to elect the Australian federal House of Representatives, for which voters are required to express a preference by ranking all candidates standing at the election. The optional preferential system is a more appropriate form of alternative vote, because it prevents people from being forced to vote positively for political parties that might be distasteful to them, such as those on the extremes of politics. The optional preferential system does not put people in such an uncomfortable position. People should not be forced to vote for anybody—no matter how far down the rankings the candidate might be placed—whom they do not want to see elected. In response to other criticisms, notably from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, of the optional preferential alternative vote system, it is possible to have a situation in which no candidate receives 50 per cent of the vote. That could happen if most people expressed only a first preference. However, that argument will no doubt be used during the course of the campaign both by those who are in favour and those who are not in favour of AV. I will not indulge that argument now.