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

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point, but I do not accept it. Our experiences in Northern Ireland so far have been in multi-seat elections where people generally transfer to various other candidates whom they think might stand a chance of winning. In elections to a single seat, transfers cross party lines much more; and we increasingly find in elections generally that there is a bit more transferring across the lines. However, electing an MP on the single-Member constituency model involves a significantly different relationship. Why should MPs in Northern Ireland not have the incentive to be much more actively cross-community in their appeal and be able to stand on much more of a cross-community mandate? That would be to the good of politics in Northern Ireland, and it might add to the weight and credibility that MPs from Northern Ireland have in this House, instead of our just being seen according to the colour of our political faction with no other agenda or mandate behind us other than that we were lucky enough to scrape through because of how things worked out in our constituencies according to first past the post. I believe that this is an important step. I cannot dissuade anybody from feeling scepticism or cynicism about the motivation behind proposing it now, but I see very positive opportunities in it. I hope that the Committee will vote tonight to show confidence in the electorate. If people are confident enough to trust the electorate with the first-past-the-post system, why do they not trust them with a referendum that would allow them to make a choice between that system and one that ensures that they have more control over electoral mandates, and where it is less to do with the luck—almost the electoral scratchcard—of first past the post?