Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, there is no case at all for this process being rushed as the Government seek to insist that it should be. In the range of amendments so helpfully tabled by my noble friends, I personally prefer that in the name of my noble friend Lord Grocott, requiring that the Boundary Commission should report by 2017. The Government may argue, I suppose, that the case for insisting that the Boundary Commission makes its recommendations by 1 October 2013 is that it will hasten the great day when we have votes of equal value in this country, but if that is their argument it is a fallacious one. Equalising constituencies will not produce votes of equal value. Other factors will offset that effect. For example, differential turnout will mean that votes will be of different value in different constituencies. If you vote in a constituency where there is a 50 per cent turnout and someone else votes in one where there is a 60 per cent turnout and the margin of victory is the same, your vote in the 50 per cent turnout contest is a more significant one. Introducing the alternative vote will do nothing to alter the present state of affairs in which general elections are won or lost in the marginal seats. It will be the votes of swing voters in marginal seats that will continue to be intensively wooed by campaigning parties and candidates, and those votes will have a quite disproportionate effect on the electoral outcome.