Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I very much agree with what the noble Lord said about the union, and with other noble Lords from all sides of the House who made exactly the same point. That is why we would not want to encourage this amendment in any way at all. We will come back to thresholds on Report; this is an important debate to have. There was no threshold in 1975 in the only national referendum that we have held. The Opposition’s ardour for thresholds did not apply in 1997 and 1998 in their four referendums in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London. There has been no proposal from any major political party for a threshold in the referendum in Wales next March that would extend the powers of the National Assembly. Most tellingly, when AV was proposed in the Bill before Parliament, there was no threshold in that either.