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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I have been stripped and ready for action for three days. As the Leader of the House has pointed out, he and I are joined at the hip on this Bill. However, in that spirit of co-operation, he said, ““Tom, you take Clause 2 and I’ll take Clause 1””. That seemed fine at about 7 pm on the first day of this debate, when I thought that I would be coming on straight after the dinner hour. Three days later, I come on with three minutes to go. This has been an excellent mini-debate and I suggest that those who are interested in it should read the speech given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. No wonder he was facing the other way to deliver it; he was giving us both sides of the argument. It is very good that he should do so. I fully respect the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. I know that he has campaigned on this and that he feels strongly about it. I hope, given what he has said, that perhaps we will get one of the opposition days to debate the issue, or perhaps a Question for Short Debate. The issue is worth debating and I look forward to him carrying on his campaign. The problem is, as he himself acknowledged and, indeed, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, acknowledged, that this is not the place for it. It is a good political ploy to use a Bill to hang a campaign on and to get the issue raised and I fully respect the noble Lord for doing so. However, we are concerned specifically with who should vote in the referendum on the parliamentary voting system. Basing the franchise for the referendum on that for the Westminster general election seemed the most sensible thing to do. Yes, we have made a concession in that we have put alongside that noble Lords, who are entitled to vote in other elections. The Government thought that that was a fair and logical approach. I suspect that, if we had not included noble Lords, there would have been an amendment to include them.