Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I wish to speak to Clause 8 because I am worried that a certain portion of the House—essentially, the Cross-Benchers—is unaware of the fuller implications of what we are doing. I want to address my remarks primarily to them during the course of this debate. Clause 8 deals with actions that the Government must take following the result of the referendum, a referendum that is based on a simple majority. A simple majority vote is what the Government argue is their way of respecting the will of the people. I quote those words ““respecting the will of the people”” because they were the words that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, used in his response to the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. I go back to 13 per cent. That is hardly what I would call the will of the people. I would argue that that not being the will of the people, the Government should—the Bill says ““must””—take certain actions in this clause. I would argue that they should not take those actions. I argue that that 13 per cent figure is particularly relevant—we are back, essentially, to a threshold debate—because last week I had conversations with various electoral registration officers in the north-west of England, and from the conclusions that I drew as a result of those debates it is quite obvious that when the referendum takes place in various parts of the country next year, there will be some very low turnouts indeed. I cite the case of Manchester City Council because its elections in 2007 broadly reflect the results coming from a stream of cities in the north-west of England. Liverpool, Burnley, Preston and all the cities around that area broadly had the same turnouts in their local election campaigns. I will refer to a return that was sent to me by Manchester City Council for the elections in 2007. The relevance of this to the Cross-Benchers is this; I believe that most Cross-Benchers have had no experience whatever of turnouts in elections. The closest that most Cross-Benchers in this House will ever have been to an election is voting in one. They will never have canvassed, they will never have been members of political parties, and their knowledge of these matters will be very small indeed. I draw the Cross-Benchers’ attention to some turnout figures so that when they read the record of the debate, they will understand what happens in these inner city seats—seats that will form part of the national results. It takes only 50.1 per cent of the return in these seats actually to win the referendum. I will not name the seats in Manchester, but I will go through some of the turnouts: 24 per cent, 21 per cent, 23 per cent, 22 per cent, 27 per cent, 16 per cent, 29 per cent, 28 per cent, 21 per cent, 27 per cent, 20 per cent, 29 per cent and 17 per cent. Let us remember that it needs only half of these turnouts in terms of cast votes to decide in favour. They will in effect approve the biggest constitutional question, in what I think were the words of Mr Clegg, for the last 180 years. I shall go on: 24 per cent, 29 per cent, 25 per cent, 21 per cent, 21 per cent, 21 per cent, making an average of 27 per cent. Those are very low turnouts indeed. I cannot see how it is possible to justify changing the law on such a major constitutional issue on the basis of low turnouts on this scale. If I translate those turnouts into the votes that are actually required in Manchester City, a city of a third of a million people, on an average turnout of 27.7 per cent you need only 13.85 per cent of the electorate to approve the referendum. It means that the votes alone of 42,580 people in Manchester, a city of a third of a million people, would determine the result of whether people were in favour of the change in our electoral arrangements to AV. I do not believe that 42,000 out of a third of a million people in Manchester could in anyone’s language be described as the will of the people being exercised in the way suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. It is far too low a figure. I have spoken in the debate on clause stand part because I hope that when the Cross-Benchers, who I maintain again have no experience whatever of being engaged in political activity, consider this statistic alone, it might give them pause and make them wonder whether it might now be appropriate to introduce a threshold. Despite what was said in the House of Commons, the reality is that this matter was hardly debated at the other end. There was no great debate because of the way House of Commons business is conducted these days. I hope that the statistics I have produced will get through to those whose judgment may be influenced.