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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Part of the debate is how much the changes need to be made. We believe that they do not and that the existing rules and regulations will stand. We see no reason to change the current legislation on spending limits for this referendum. Quite apart from seeing no compelling reason of principle, we should consider the practical effects. We are not far away from the start of the referendum period and changing the rules at this late stage could penalise permitted participants unfairly. In particular, we do not agree that there should be different spending regulations for this referendum compared with others, as the amendment suggests. We do not agree that there should be this distinction and we believe that the current spending regulation framework should apply to this referendum.