Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I want to follow that specific question. I am pleased that my noble friend was able to intervene before me. It is not just a question of whether the Electoral Commission would recommend that the date be changed; it is whether the Government for other reasons might wish to change the date of the referendum. I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that in 2001 a Government had to defer elections due to the foot and mouth crisis. All over the country, returning officers were arguing with their local authorities that it would be impractical, because of problems at polling stations, to carry out polling on that particular day. In addition to the question asked by my noble friend, I would therefore like to know what would happen in those circumstances. In Clause 4(7) of the Bill there is reference to, "““Section 16 of the Representation of the People Act 1985 (postponement of poll at parish elections etc) does not apply to any polls taken together under subsection (1)””," and subsection (1)(b) refers specifically to, "““a local referendum in England””." So I think that we should have some assurance about what would happen in the emergency circumstances that might arise. I had to leave the Chamber for personal reasons during the course of a couple of speeches, but I understand that reference was made to our alleged inconsistency in these matters. I would like to draw the House’s attention to the then Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill which was considered by Parliament earlier this year—a Bill produced by the then Labour Government. Under Clause 29 of that legislation we find my noble friend's amendment. Under ““Referendum on voting systems””, it states: "““A referendum is to be held, no later than 31 October 2011, on the voting system for parliamentary elections””." In other words, we showed in our Bill the flexibility that my noble friend seeks to establish in this Bill. Our position is perfectly consistent with the position that we took earlier this year. I am very pleased to see a large number of Cross-Benchers in the Chamber today. The other day we debated an aspect of this Bill, when some of us were a little concerned that the Cross-Benchers had perhaps not been able to hear the debate. That is the insufficiency of consideration that has been given to the effectiveness of the electoral system proposed in this Bill. There is a lot of evidence out there to suggest that the optional multi-preference election system under the alternative vote system—which applies not in Australia generally in its federal Parliament arrangements, but only in one state, Queensland—is flawed. There has been a lot of academic work to prove that. In later stages of the Bill I will bring forward evidence, on the basis of international evidence which we have been able to collate, to dismantle systematically the case made for that system. Even this morning I received a paper on STV which applies under the Scottish system for local elections. The interesting thing about STV in Scotland is that when a by-election takes place there it triggers an AV election. In other words, within the United Kingdom we have examples of AV operating which have not been fully considered by Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, drew my attention to that the other day—he nods his head. What happened in those 32 by-elections in Scotland will be of great interest to the House when we produce that information. This morning I received a document, whose authors are Professor David Denver of Lancaster University, Dr Alistair Clark of Belfast and Dr Lynn Bennie of Aberdeen, on the operation of the STV system in Scotland—not on AV as it applies in individual constituencies when there is a by-election. More work needs to be done on the electrical system proposed in the Bill before Parliament finally decides what the system should be. Furthermore, in the event that we proceed with the system proposed in the Bill, there should be time for a full public debate before any referendum takes place within the United Kingdom.