Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My own view is that since Gladstone introduced the current system in 1872 in the Secret Ballot Act, for 138 years noble Lords and Members in another place decided that that system was perfectly good without revision and without letting people have their say. It is a good precedent to let people have their say, and we will wait to see when there is public demand again to have any further say. But for 138 years we have kept the same system. One hundred years ago, a Royal Commission recommended the adoption of the alternative vote, and 93 years ago, a Speakers Conference recommended the use of preference voting. Seventy-nine years ago, the other place voted for the adoption of the alternative vote, which was blocked on five occasions by your Lordships’ House. It is 36 years since a minority Conservative Government offered another Speakers Conference on electoral reform and it is 13 years since a Labour Government with a large majority had a manifesto promise and were elected on the basis that there would be a referendum on the issue of proportional representation. So it is a significant achievement for all those committed to electoral reform that twice this year in the House of Commons, with different Governments in place, there have been substantial majorities for a referendum to be held on the alternative vote. I want to see progress on this issue and hope that we will not give Members in another place a further opportunity to deny the voters their say on this issue and leave us back where we were in 1872.