Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

If my noble friend feels that strongly about the matter, he can table an amendment, put the proposition to the House and we can vote on it, if that is the way he wishes to go. I go further than most Members who have intervened in the debate in terms of the information that I believe should be included in the leaflet. First, it should be set out by the Electoral Commission where it is used. My noble friend Lord Grocott intervened to pose the important question of where AV is used, and the public need to know. Secondly, the public need to be informed that it is not a proportional representation system. There will be a great deal of misrepresentation during the course of the campaign about whether or not this is PR. It is not proportional representation and the Electoral Commission should make that clear. Thirdly, there will be a great deal of misrepresentation over the proportion of the electorate that a candidate is required to have to secure election—in other words, the argument about 50 per cent. Leaflets which refer to the 50 per cent are already being distributed and politicians are going on television stating that there is a 50 per cent requirement. Indeed, Jane Kennedy, a former Member of the other House, has recently written to a number of people in the no campaign drawing attention to inaccurate information which has been put out by the yes campaign. This is only the start; how much more difficult will it get? There is a need to draw a distinction between the different AV systems because, with the media targeting the debate during the course of the campaign—as they inevitably will—they will draw on the distinctions between the three systems of AV, to which I have referred in previous debates. The Electoral Commission should make it clear exactly which one is being adopted but refer to the other two—one of which is the system used for the election of mayors in the United Kingdom. The Electoral Commission should also point in its leaflet to the relevance of the need to use all preferences during the course of the ballot that takes place under AV—again I refer to the distinction between the Australian Queensland system and the conventional system used in Australia in federal elections—and that can be done in fairly simple language. It also needs to be pointed out—this is far more argumentative—that AV does not necessarily lead to coalitions. Factually, it does not necessarily lead to coalitions, and yet the no campaign is arguing that coalitions are the inevitable consequence of the introduction of the alternative vote. That is not the case. It does lead to coalitions in certain circumstances but not in others. There are many issues which my noble friend Lord Davies would argue indicate an element of bias but which I believe should be factually placed before the electorate to enable them to take a proper decision. Finally, I return to the timing of the referendum, an issue we debated last night. One of my fears is what will happen to the leaflets during the course of the referendum. If the referendum was held on a separate date, referendum leaflets would go through letter boxes all over the country. As it is, because the referendum is to take place on the same day as elections in various parts of the United Kingdom, referendum leaflets will be mixed with election leaflets and many will go in the bin. I am very sorry, but that is the case. Again I say to the Liberal Democrats that they have chosen the wrong date and, even at this late stage, they should revisit the decisions they have taken on these matters and which they have forced upon the coalition.