Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

My Lords, I anticipated that it would not be long before the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, found an opportunity to digress from the issue of participation in elections at weekends and encouraging people to participate. It is a source of regret to me, if not to many others, that the debate the noble Lord proposed to have about the relative turnout resulting from different electoral systems was not held in this House. Of course, he tends to compare declining turnout in European elections with declining turnout in general elections. The truth is that turnout is declining in many levels of elections, particularly in European elections. People may see the European Parliament as even more remote and they make a protest by spoiling their ballot paper. We have to recognise that. But if the noble Lord wishes to study the evidence on this properly and looks at the preference vote using the 1,2,3 system, he will see that in the Scottish local elections in 2007, notwithstanding the fact that there were other elections for the Scottish Parliament on the same day which used a different proportional system, there were very few spoilt ballot papers. The principle of weekend voting deserves serious and considered debate. It is most unfortunate that the Bill as it stands enshrines Thursday as the day on which general elections should be held, even though that is an accidental precedent. It is not widely known that there is no statutory basis at present for polling day to be on a Thursday; indeed, many council by-elections are held on a Wednesday or a Tuesday when, for some good reason, they cannot be held on a Thursday. We should think about voting on a Saturday or a Sunday or a Saturday and a Sunday. Our amendments provide the Government with what some noble Lords will now understand as being a Lord Rooker-type famous lifeboat. They do not actually say that things should change; they merely invite the Government to consider the possibility of a change on the assumption that there could be proper consultation, perhaps piloting and serious debate, and then the decision can be made at a later point. We can look at the arguments and consider them properly but because, as I said earlier, the issue has simply been allowed to drift so often, our amendments set a deadline for determination of the issue. That deadline is, sensibly, 1 October 2013, which coincides with the deadline for the publication of reports by the Boundary Commissions. I hope very much, therefore, that the Government will keep an open mind on weekend voting. If there is a clear promise that we will consider this issue properly in due course and that Parliament will be allowed to decide whether voting should in some form be taking place at weekends rather than on a Thursday, I will not seek to press my amendments. But if there is no such indication, I would, at the very least, not want to see the Bill pass with people thinking that Thursday 7 May 2015 is already fixed in stone as polling day for the next general election.