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

I have sat in this House for a very long time, and rarely have I heard such hyperbole and abuse in place of serious argument. The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) said that information about the cost had to be extracted from us. That is not so: we have answered a whole series of parliamentary questions on this. The cost of a referendum is hardly a surprise. Given that it involves all the electors of the United Kingdom and similar provisions for Freepost and so on, it comes to about the same as the cost of a general election, which is indeed about £80 million. Which Department will the money come from? It will come from the Consolidated Fund, as all electoral expenditure does. Of course it is £80 million, but it is £80 million as a single piece of expenditure in a single year. Why is there no direct parallel with, for example, the cost of providing additional prison places? Because, as the hon. Gentleman will discover if he ever ends up in the position of having to negotiate with the Treasury for a departmental budget, there is a world of difference between single, one-off expenditure and continuing expenditure that involves costs every year. I have a lot of time for the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), but he has a bit of gall complaining about the amount of money that he claims is not available for the health service in his constituency. The amount of money spent on health services in his constituency has more than doubled, if not trebled, in real terms since 1997. There will not be a health facility in his constituency, nor a school, that has not significantly improved.