Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I have considerable agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Newton, on the very difficult issues raised by this profoundly important set of amendments. If my memory serves me correctly, the last time that I discussed the matter with the Electoral Commission, it was talking about preparing a leaflet or pamphlet on this very issue. I think that the same issue came up on Second Reading, too. The difficulty is ensuring that the leaflet is right and unbiased. I phoned the Electoral Commission this morning to find out the latest position and, perhaps slightly worryingly, both the numbers that I normally use and get through on without any trouble were unobtainable. I am sure that there is a very good explanation and that I will be able to get through soon, but that means that I cannot tell the House where the Electoral Commission is up to on this important issue. The amendments from the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord Rooker, spell out the right principle that we need material that says, in plain English, what an alternative voting slip will look like and so on. However, as soon as we get into explaining how the system works, we are in much more difficulty. It is very hard to write a leaflet on how a voting system works—particularly how it works in comparison to an existing system—without getting into a minefield of problems about possible outcomes or computations of the effect of one’s vote. There is a lot in Amendment 109A, in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer, that if we are to go down this road, having the Speaker’s committee involved in the Electoral Commission would be a good idea to provide some political insight. Otherwise, I can envisage that the leaflet that might come out could produce literally thousands of phone calls from political parties and their agents up and down the land saying, ““This is biased””. That is only a short step away from the courts. The same point might be made about the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury—we would get into an absolute minefield. I hope that the Government will give this serious thought. The Government may already have talked to the Electoral Commission—perhaps they had another phone number that worked this morning that I did not have. I know that the commission is exercised by the issue and is keen both to get the information out to the public about the importance of the referendum and to convey information to people about the different voting system. However, if we are to go down the road of requiring rather more detail on the effect, we have to look much more carefully at Amendment 109A in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer, which would at least provide for some political control. Without that, the Electoral Commission will, frankly, be hung out to dry and probably crucified as well. I hope that the Government will give this important issue careful thought, given that, as my noble friend Lord Lipsey said, we have done so little on this and the changes will all come very suddenly. We must make a major effort to convey to the public the importance of this vote. On that point, my noble friend Lord Lipsey is absolutely right. The problem is what should be put into or left out of the leaflet.