Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I will have a vote in the referendum. I can let your Lordships into another secret: my noble friend Lord McNally will vote yes. Some might think, as our votes will cancel each other out, we should just stay at home and have a quiet dinner together, but we will not, because both of us are agreed that the British people should have this choice, and we will each campaign for the answer we seek. How odd it would be if this unelected House, which lately voted overwhelmingly against the very idea that your Lordships should be elected, should have the temerity to tell the elected House how to proceed on its own election or to deny its wish to give the people their say. The Lords Constitution Committee has now published its report on the Bill. It states that there has not been enough consultation on it. Respectfully, I disagree. The proposals in this Bill apply entirely to the other place. It has been rigorously examined there over eight days on the Floor of the House and through 35 Divisions. It reflects the settled will of the elected House. On the referendum, the Government have worked closely with the Electoral Commission and administrators, and the commission has declared itself broadly satisfied that sufficient progress has been made to enable the local returning and counting officers to run the polls well and that voters will be able to participate in them. The provisions in the Bill are sound, and Members of this House should consider carefully the clear signal from the elected House before making major changes in it. There has been speculation about the last possible date for royal assent to allow the referendum to happen on 5 May. I believe there is more than adequate time. It is certainly important that, commensurate with full scrutiny in this House, we give participants and campaigners in the referendum as much time as possible to prepare for a full and informed campaign. We owe that to the electorate, but it is possible to do that and allow enough time to examine the Bill, which I hope will complete its passage as soon as possible in January 2011. I do not want to make unnecessary political points, but I remind noble Lords opposite of a forgotten document: A Future Fair for All, the manifesto of the party opposite only this spring, written by their current leader. On page 62, it talks of, ““A New Politics””. It continues: "““To ensure that every MP is supported by a majority of their constituents voting at each election, we will hold a referendum on introducing the Alternative Vote for elections to the House of Commons””." That was what Mr Miliband thought then, so I take it that we will have full support from the party opposite for the part of the Bill that provides for what it itself promised at the general election. There is a small quibble: the party opposite promised a referendum by October 2011. The Bill proposes it in May 2011—one year into this Parliament, but that is a far slower timetable than the six-month one used by the party opposite for the referendums on Scottish and Welsh devolution in 1997.