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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who intervened a few moments ago, is of course absolutely right. The Conservatives have voted for thresholds in referendums whenever they felt it suited them and whenever they thought it would be to the disadvantage of a Labour Government. Indeed, Scottish devolution was delayed by 20 years because the Conservative party voted for a threshold on the referendum on Scottish devolution in 1979. It is appropriate that this motion should stand in the name of the leader of the Liberal Democrats because this entire Bill is about the Liberal Democrats. Anybody who has the opportunity should read the Nuffield study, ““The British General Election of 2010””, which makes it absolutely clear in a masterly piece of research that the sticking-point on whether the Liberal Democrats would go into a coalition with the Conservatives was whether the referendum that we are debating this evening would be introduced by a coalition Government. What the Government are doing—I rarely agree with the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), but he is absolutely right this evening—is rigging the British political system with this Bill. The Bill was introduced, and is being railroaded through, to placate 8% of the House of Commons; 92% of the House of Commons do not want it.