Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill (Money) (No. 3)

When the Government came up with these proposals, they could not, when asked, provide costings on how much they would have to spend in order to allow this referendum to take place. Only bit by bit has the figure of £80 million gradually been extracted as the economic cost of carrying it out, and even that—I wait to hear from the Secretary of State in a few minutes—appears to be far from clear. That is £80 million for a gimmick that the Government wish to foist on the electorate, and at a time when they keep pointing out to us that savings are going to have to be made and that every pound matters. I do not know where the £80 million is supposed to come from, but on my calculation it would pay for the prison places needed to scrap the early release scheme, which the Secretary of State says is so important to him; it would fund 15 rape crisis centres, if that is what he wants to do out of the justice budget; and it would enable him to drop the disgraceful policy of refusing to meet the legal costs of acquitted defendants who do not enjoy legal aid. All those things could be done, and I have to say to him that that would be money much better spent. For those reasons, the House should have the courage to say that £80 million misspent is a travesty and a denial of our responsibility to the electorate, and it should reject this motion.