Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, perhaps there should be a word from this side. My noble friend Lord Deben said that we should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for introducing the amendment; I agree with him. I thank him for his support because he said that he did not agree with it and, as he is not in favour of referendums at all, that is a bold step. I also thank my noble friend Lord Rennard for his support. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said that it was sheer folly to go down this route without an inquiry. In moving his amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said that there should be an inquiry, that there are deficiencies in AV, and that other systems should be examined. All this may be true. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said that later in Committee he would invite the House to vote on other systems. I do not want to encourage him to do so, but that must be the right way of dealing with these issues. The amendment seeks an inquiry but we believe that on an issue as fundamental as voting reform the public need to be given a clear choice which will produce an equally clear result. For all the arguments that may take place about how AV works, the attraction of the approach that we have taken is that the Bill sets it out in Clause 9 and Schedule 10. Any questions about how AV works or what form of AV is proposed can be resolved by looking at the Bill. That would not be the case with these amendments and the result would therefore be a lack of clarity, voter confusion and scope for misrepresentation about the merits of the various systems during the campaign.