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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I shall make a brief intervention. I did not participate in the debate this morning, although I did so at Report, 10 days ago, in a way that I am afraid my noble friend found slightly disobliging. I also voted in a disobliging way then and again earlier today. I found the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, persuasive on four grounds. First, as he has said when he moved it, we should avoid setting or reinforcing the precedent that referenda should not have thresholds. I do not like referenda. We elect Members to go to the other place to take difficult decisions and I think that referenda that decide important issues of public policy with small turnouts are doubly undesirable. The second reason for supporting the noble Lord’s amendment is that it sets the binding, mandatory threshold at a level that would command public confidence. It is the stickability and credibility argument. A 40 per cent turnout, at which 21 per cent, or one in five, will have had to vote in favour, seems to strike the right balance. Thirdly, the amendment means that if there were to be, as I fear there will be, substantially differential turnouts in different parts of the country, because of the different types of elections taking place—parliamentary elections, Assembly elections and, in London, no elections at all—those for whom the referendum goes in the wrong direction need to be assured that there has been a reasonable overall turnout. I think that 40 per cent is that right level. Finally, the amendment is not a fatal amendment, because the referendum would become advisory if the turnout was below 40 per cent. Indeed, the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, would not have had my support, because it sought to tie the hands of the Government, as opposed to enabling them to have the opportunity to consider the advisability of proceeding, when we knew what the final turnout was. The amendment is being put forward once again by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in his normal robust and combative way—and it is none the worse for that. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, in his more silky and persuasive form, sought to raise the debate to a higher level and has made remarks such as that the amendment is in line with our parliamentary democracy and high principles. I hope that he will forgive me if I say that, when I see how his party has changed its voting position in the other place, there may be high principle, but there must be at least a whiff of political opportunism around the other Chamber. We have now asked the other place to think about this issue twice and we have had a clear answer twice—by 70 votes last night and by 79 this evening, if my mathematics are right. We have heard a powerful speech from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the amendment, he was right to tell us that we are discussing an issue that focuses narrowly on a matter that affects the other place alone. Therefore, while I continue to have considerable and very grave doubts about the course on which my Government are embarking, I am afraid that I have now concluded, after two disobliging votes, that the time has come for the Members of the elected Chamber to make a final decision, because they alone will have to live with the consequences of their deliberations.