Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I raised the question of thresholds at Second Reading and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, replied by saying, ““Bring it on! Put it down and we will vote it down””, so he can hardly be surprised that the amendment has arrived. I hope that he will be a bit more flexible than he indicated on that occasion. The amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has put forward is—as has already been said—an extremely modest one. There are other amendments, with successively higher thresholds, which the House might or might not wish to examine and divide on. The principle of some sort of threshold is extremely strong. There are two sorts of thresholds. There are thresholds that relate to the outcome of the referendum that demand that that there should be a minimum percentage of those voting yes as a hurdle. That is an outcome referendum as in the 1979 referendum on Scottish devolution. Then there are quite different thresholds—like all the amendments tonight—that are purely based on turnouts. Looking at other countries is very interesting. There, the logic of the argument is that constitutional change should occur only when there is a clearly expressed and significant majority for it. In the United States, for example, in order to change the constitution, a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress is required. Those changes then have to be ratified by three-quarters of the state legislatures. In Germany two-thirds of the members of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat have to vote for constitutional changes. In New Zealand and Austria it has to be a two-thirds majority of votes cast, in Norway two-thirds of members of the Storting, and in Belgium two-thirds of the votes in both houses of parliament. In Denmark there is a 40 per cent threshold for constitutional changes, and in Italy a 50 per cent threshold. I believe there are also thresholds in Spain and Switzerland. The principle is very clearly accepted in many countries and the logic of it is very powerful: that constitutional change can be extremely important and has to be endorsed by the electorate by a significant majority indicating that that is the will of the people. It is interesting, I note, that even in the Liberal Democrats’ constitution there must be a qualified majority for certain matters. I think I am right in saying—I know I will be contradicted immediately if I am wrong—that they required a two-thirds majority to enter the coalition. I know they were unanimous; that is what was expressed in the other House and not contradicted by any member of the Liberal Democrat party. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, will no doubt elucidate this for us. The principle is clear and the logic is powerful. I notice that Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, the well known academic on electoral systems, who was at Oxford and Brunel University, gave evidence to the Constitution Committee in which he said that either a 40 per cent outcome threshold or a 60 per cent turnout threshold would be eminently reasonable. Whatever Members think about that, it would be self-evidently ridiculous if we had no threshold, there was a very low turnout—let us say 15 per cent—and we just proceeded as though that were okay. It is interesting that when we had the referendum on the north-east assembly, which was rejected, there was no requirement in that legislation for a threshold. However, such was the nervousness that this created among Ministers, that Nick Raynsford, the Minister at the time, was reported as saying that if there was a very low turnout the Government might not go ahead. They recognised the logic of the argument then. Ministers say that they are confident there will be a good turnout so they admit that that would be a good thing. If they are confident that there will be a good turnout, why do we not have a threshold written into the Bill, just to underwrite it? Some of the arguments that have been put forward against a threshold have been rather weak. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said, it is not really an argument for the House of Lords to say, ““The other place doesn’t agree with us. We are not going to do it because the other place voted one way on this matter””. We are entitled to vote on this. It is one of the functions of the second Chamber to look particularly closely at constitutional issues. Mr Harper, at one point when replying to the debate in the House of Commons, said that the Government did not want a threshold because they wanted to recognise the will of the people. However, if the will of the people is expressed by 10 or 15 per cent, that hardly seems to justify fundamental change. Then we have the argument that we do not have thresholds for MPs. That is an interesting argument, to which I make two points in reply. First, MPs have to put themselves up for re-election. Once you have constitutional change, it is extremely difficult to reverse. Secondly, are we not here discussing a voting system the argument for which is that it will get a lot of MPs elected with majorities of 50 per cent? If that is the logic for electing MPs in the new electoral system, why should we not have a similar majority for a referendum on that system? Then there is the argument that a turnout threshold would encourage people to stay away, and that people who stayed away were effectively voting no by not participating. You could equally say that the turnout threshold encourages people to vote. There is as much logic that way as there is the other way. I do not think there is reason on one side of the argument rather than the other. It is interesting to look at the referendums that we had in Scotland. In 1979, when the referendum had an outcome threshold, the turnout was 63 per cent, despite the threshold. When there was no threshold, the turnout fell to 60 per cent, so I do not follow the argument that a threshold will deter people from voting. I also believe that a threshold related to turnout is consistent with the coalition agreement. I am sensitive to this point, which I raised with the noble Lord, Lord McNally, as he will recall, at Second Reading. I understand that it was acknowledged in another place in the debate on a similar amendment, and at Second Reading, that it is consistent with the coalition agreement, which in effect called for there to be no outcome threshold because there should still be a simple majority. Well, it would still be a simple majority, one way or the other, even with a turnout threshold. It seems to me that there is a principle of having a threshold related to turnout. It is sometimes said that we have never had a turnout threshold in this country. I found when I read an ancient Hansard that in some local referendums on particularly rarefied issues such as local licensing or religious instruction in Scotland, there have sometimes been turnout thresholds. The idea is not completely foreign and is widely accepted in many parts of the world. The amendment is extremely modest. Other amendments on this issue will be debated. Regardless of which one catches the attention of the House, the principle of a threshold of some kind, at some level, is pretty irresistible. I hope that the Minister will be a little flexible on this, because it would be profoundly wrong and would lead to great disillusionment if, on a very low turnout, there is a result that changed the voting system. There would be certain reaction against that and it would lead to considerable bitterness. I do not think that the result would be accepted at all. It is in everyone’s interest that one of these amendments should be very carefully considered by the Government.