Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I greatly appreciate the contributions of noble Lords across the Committee on my amendment. I do not want to delay the Committee, but I do want to say a few words on the comments made by noble Lords. The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, was very welcome because, of course, it was he, who, on 1 February 2000, in debate on the Local Government Bill, described my system as, "““a perfectly respectable system. It has a number of strong features to commend it … It is nice and simple. Academic research has found that people like using it””.—[Official Report, 1/2/00; col. 172.]" That really is at the heart of this whole question. The system I was proposing and which I want to be on the table during the course of the inquiry that should take place is simple and easily understood by the public. I welcome the support of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and his understanding of the unlikelihood of voters using additional preferences. I obviously dissent from his conclusions. My noble friend Lord Rooker commented on the question of the 50 per cent. That has got to be sorted out because even the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for whom we have immense respect, said during the course of his Radio 4 ““Today”” programme interview the other day—I took it down word for word—that he believed it took 50 per cent to elect a Member of Parliament under the AV system. That is simply not true. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said that the Liberal Democrats have not political advantage in mind when promoting AV. That is simply untrue. I have talked to huge numbers of Liberal Democrats over the years who have said, where they support AV, which is not their preferred system, that at least it gives them more seats in Parliament. I cannot see how he can possibly dissent from the view expressed by so many of his colleagues.