Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, when I first tabled this little group of amendments, I included one that was along the lines of a side-title to it: ““the people’s choice””. That is what this group is about. At the moment, nobody has asked the people. Nobody has asked anybody whether they want to change the voting system. This group of amendments splits the question into two parts. It is fairly self-explanatory, although it is not as easy to see when they are split up on the Marshalled List. The first question is in Amendment 21 and would ask people: "““Do you wish to change the voting system?””." People are not being asked this. It was implied by Amendment 16. People were not asked whether they wanted change; it said that it had been agreed to change the voting system. I want to ask people whether they want to do so. The second part, if there are yes and no answers to that first question, is in Amendment 27: "““If a majority vote for a change in the voting system, which of the alternatives””—" I call them families— "““would you prefer?””." There are four there; it is a little package. I will not labour the point. I did not invent this. It is a replica, although not exactly, of what happened in New Zealand nearly 20 years ago. New Zealand had first past the post, a very modern democracy and votes for women 30 years before this country did, so we should not lecture anyone there about democracy and parliamentary systems. It had first past the post and there was pressure for change. I shall not deploy all the documentation and so on but a referendum was held in New Zealand in two parts. The people were asked, first, ““Do you wish to change the system? Yes or no?””, and then below that on the paper was the second question, ““If the yes vote wins, which one of the following do you want?””. The options given were in families—I use that term because of the debates that we have had—rather than in detail. Parliament took it away, worked on it to make it a practical reality and then a year later, in 1993, there was a second binding referendum between first past the post and the alternative, which won the vote and was turned into a practical system. It worked. I do not know how many times it has been used—probably at least four or five—but in New Zealand the people were asked before a change was made.