Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I think that the noble and learned Lord has missed the point of the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, which is critical to the operation of AV. The noble Lord has hit it right on the head. The additional preferences, the second preferences, of those voters who voted BNP as their first preference, when transferred, could take the top candidate over the 50 per cent threshold and thereby secure the election of that candidate. At the same time all the other second preferences, or whichever preferences, of all the other candidates would be completely ignored. That is the central flaw in the AV system, which is why Conservatives should be opposing it. The only AV system that gets over that problem is the one that I designed—SV. It is built to avoid precisely that happening, because the second preferences are all transferred in one go to the top two candidates, and you avoid all that nonsense. The noble Lord hit it right on the head.