Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

These changes will have a clear impact as electors find themselves not merely with the added burden of an extra piece of paper to complete, as they will in the clashing elections next May and the alternative vote referendum, but voting for different constituency locations. I am proud to serve on the Welsh Affairs Committee in my first term in Parliament. The Committee received evidence from a number of organisations on these potential problems, and reported on them in our first publication of this Session, entitled ““'The implications for Wales of the Government's proposals on constitutional reform””. We heard, for example, testimony from Lewis Baston, senior research fellow with Democratic Audit. He said that"““the elections for Westminster and the Assembly would be taking place on different systems on the same day, and more complicatedly on two sets of boundaries which will hardly ever correlate with each other.””" Philip Johnson told our Committee that the coincidence of elections could have ““horrendous”” consequences in 2015.