Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
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The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)
My Lords, these are important amendments. I immediately take the point made by the noble and learned Lord on the follow-up to Committee. I regret any discourtesy that has been felt by the noble and learned Lord. While he was making his comments, I had the draft of a letter to him; I have now had it confirmed by the Leader of the House that it has been issued. It is dated with today’s date, so he might not have received it yet, but it is a fairly comprehensive letter that runs to almost three pages. I will not read it out or put it on the record. I apologise if the noble and learned Lord has not yet received it.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
What on earth is the point of sending me a letter, which I have not had a chance to consider, that arrives after Report has started?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I can only confirm the factual position. I fully take the point that the noble and learned Lord has not yet had an opportunity to consider the letter. I have no idea when it was put into the system. I saw a draft earlier but was not in a position until now to confirm that it had been issued. As I indicated, I apologise for any discourtesy to the noble and learned Lord.
I turn to the two amendments. On the first one, as we explained in Committee, the Government introduced the clause to which the amendments relate in the other place after the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee identified an ambiguity in the current legislation—the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—over whether publication of material about the referendum by a media organisation in favour of a specific result would be caught by the spending restrictions that apply to the campaigning groups. Clause 5 provides that the costs of covering and reporting on the referendum in the media are not referendum expenses. In the interests of the freedom of the press, it would be wrong for the spending restrictions to apply in this way. I think that is common ground across the House.
The amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord seeks to add “referendum campaign” before “broadcasts” to line 7 of page 4. This would go against Schedule 13 to the PPER Act 2000, which sets out that,
“agency fees, design costs and other costs in connection with preparing or producing”,
referendum campaign broadcasts are to be included as referendum expenses. I am not sure whether it was the noble and learned Lord’s intention to exempt such expenses from counting, but the Government do not agree that this should be the case. Designated lead campaign organisations are entitled to free referendum campaign broadcasts in terms of airtime, but the expenses incurred in respect of the production of these referendum campaign broadcasts do and should count towards referendum expenses. Therefore, it would not be right to accept this amendment, which would exempt these production expenses from counting.
Another reason why we do not agree with the first amendment is that it would bring back the ambiguity that we sought to remove through Clause 5 by limiting the provision to referendum broadcasts only. It would not therefore cover other types of broadcast, as it was designed to when we added it to the Bill. The result would be to reactivate the question of whether any broadcast other than referendum campaign broadcasts would be caught by the spending restrictions as they are currently drawn. It would then be ambiguous as to what would and would not count as referendum expenses in other types of BBC or Sianel Pedwar Cymru broadcasts—such as news programmes and politics programmes—other than those for the referendum campaign. We all agree that the media play a vital role in building public awareness and presenting facts and opinions on the matters raised by the poll. This amendment could prevent media comment if the spending limit for referendum expenses was reached. This would not be right. That was also the view of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the other place. We believe that accepting this amendment would go against the Committee.
We agreed in Committee to consider carefully the second amendment. I can assure the House that the Government have done so. I regret the lateness of the letter, but the position is set out in it. The Government agree with the principle that party election broadcasts should not be used as referendum campaign broadcasts. As was highlighted in Committee, there is a clear definition of what constitutes a referendum campaign broadcast under Section 127 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act—to which the noble Lord, Lord Soley, drew our attention. Any broadcast whose purpose or main purpose is to procure or promote an outcome in the referendum is a referendum campaign broadcast. Referendum campaign broadcasts can be made only by the designated lead campaign organisations. The current law therefore already provides that the purposes—or main purpose—of party election broadcasts must not be to promote or procure a referendum outcome. Therefore, we can be assured that party election broadcasts cannot be used by political parties as a significant referendum campaign opportunity. In a moment, I will come to the crucial point that the noble Lord, Lord Soley, raised.
Section 127 of the PPER Act provides a safeguard against a political party using a party election broadcast as a referendum campaign broadcast. However, it also provides appropriate leeway for broadcasters to make a judgment call as to whether material that a party might want to broadcast strays beyond mentioning the referendum in passing in an election broadcast and into the realms of what would become a referendum campaign broadcast.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Is the noble and learned Lord saying that, if one of the purposes of a political party’s broadcast—though not its main purpose—was to encourage people to vote in a particular way in the referendum, it would infringe Section 127 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
What I said was that, as I understand it, under Section 127, any broadcast whose purpose or main purpose—there is obviously a difference; a purpose is not necessarily a main purpose—is to promote a particular outcome would fall foul of Section 127.
The point I was trying to develop is that there is a judgment call to be made as to whether we recognise and accept that material that a party might want to broadcast that strays beyond mentioning the referendum in passing in election broadcast and goes into the realms of what then becomes, in terms of the Act, a referendum campaign broadcast. In one view, a statement that briefly refers to the referendum—the fact that it is taking place and sets out whether the party supports a particular outcome—is merely an expression of the party’s policy. Such a statement may be necessary to explain the policy platform of the party’s election campaign and may not qualify as referendum campaigning in a wider sense. If that is right, this sort of content may have a legitimate and logical place in a party election broadcast. Going further than that—for example, by setting out the arguments in support of its favoured outcome—may cross the line and move towards it being a broadcast that is subject to the limitations in Section 127. Obviously the Government are not the ultimate arbiter here and the views of the broadcasters are critical. However, this amendment would remove any ability for the broadcasters to take a flexible approach to these sorts of issues.
Having spoken with the broadcasters, the Government think that this sort of flexibility can be sensibly administered without causing undue harm to the referendum or election campaigns. Indeed, not providing that sort of flexibility might cause undue harm to effective and fair campaigning. There will be party election broadcasts for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly and local elections on 5 May.
We have discussed the technicalities of the noble and learned Lord’s amendment and how these party election broadcasts would be regulated in practice during a referendum period with colleagues from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, representatives from the BBC and the Broadcasters’ Liaison Group, Ofcom and the Electoral Commission. It is clear that in matters of political broadcasting, particularly political advertising, broadcasters are frequently required to make a judgment about what constitutes correct practical interpretation of the legal requirements. The need for broadcasters to make a judgment in interpreting Section 127 of PPERA would not be unusual in this context.
I readily accept that on one view the amendment could be seen as helpful for broadcasters as it draws a black and white line in legislation as to what material can and cannot be included. The Government are concerned, however, that this approach would go against a well established system that is already in place for dealing with matters of party political coverage and would unnecessarily limit the ability of a party to show how its position on the referendum forms part of the wider policy platform on which it wishes to campaign in the elections on 5 May.
Lord Soley
I was trying not to intervene but I have to do so in view of what the Minister has just said. The type of statement that would worry me is if the party political broadcast was majoring on, for example, giving more power to the people—which might be about a range of things, local authorities or whatever— and it said, “If you vote this way or that way on the referendum, that will increase your power”. I suppose that we need to go back to the broadcasters on this, but I do not think that that ought to be allowed. The Minister makes a fair point; we want to allow the broadcasters flexibility but they need to be aware that a statement like that would be seen as giving significant support to the referendum one way or the other.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I am grateful to the noble Lord for the way in which he presents a very tricky and complex issue. I think I indicated that one of the difficulties was the possibility of limiting the ability of a party to show how its position on the referendum formed part of a wider policy platform. The point I have been trying to make is that broadcasters have experience in this matter. It is probably invidious for Governments to decide what goes too far and what is on the right side of the line. There is also a question of whether legislating to such specificity on the content of party election broadcasts could risk limiting a political party’s freedom of expression. I do not think that anyone here would wish that to happen.
Lord Tyler
I have had experience of this matter. Is not the reality that anyone preparing a broadcast will always err on the side of caution as it would be a very expensive scenario if broadcasters were told, “We think you are infringing the requirements of the 2000 Act”, and they therefore had to amend dramatically, or even withdraw, the intended broadcast? Therefore, I should have thought that the present flexibility is much safer than the provision which the noble and learned Lord is trying to include in the Bill.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My noble friend makes a fair point. The last thing any political party wants is to find that, after having spent money, the broadcast has to be pulled. I shall discuss in a moment approaches that have been made to the political parties by the chair of the Broadcasters’ Liaison Group. I suggest that the appropriate place for further rules on the content of party election broadcasts would be under the framework established by the Communications Act 2003, where existing regulation of political broadcasts lies. The chair of the Broadcasters’ Liaison Group wrote to the political parties in November 2010, highlighting the existing provisions and opening lines of communication on the subject. It might be useful to read the content of the letter into the record. It states:
“If you are considering including any references to the referendum in your PEB, then we draw your attention to Section 127 of the PPERA. This section prevents broadcasters from transmitting any broadcast where it’s purpose, or main purpose, is, or can be assumed to be, to further a referendum campaign for a particular outcome other than by the designated RBCs. Therefore if you intend to include any references to the referendum in your PEB, I’d be grateful if you could contact me well in advance so that the BBC is able to make a judgment about whether the proposed PEB may put it in breach of the statutory provision”.
It is the Government’s view that this established mechanism of communication between the broadcasters and the political parties will effectively manage the situation and answer queries from the political parties as to what they can and cannot include in their broadcasts. The broadcasters’ guidance is the most appropriate place to deal with this matter, as for other aspects of political coverage.
These are important amendments. I again apologise that the noble and learned Lord saw the letter at a late stage, but I hope that, given what I have said, he will recognise that a lot of consideration has been given to this, including engagement with the broadcasters, the DCMS and others. I hope that the House will agree with the Government’s conclusion that, after careful consideration with relevant stakeholders, the current provisions, along with the broadcasters’ guidance, are the right way to deal with party election broadcasts during a referendum period, rather than amendments to the Bill. Against that background, I ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Rooker
I wish to move the amendment formally because it was connected to the earlier Amendment A1. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, while I note that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has moved the amendment formally, we discussed it in context earlier and it is important to recognise that it goes much further—
The Deputy Speaker
Amendment re-moved:
“Page 6, line 19, leave out ‘must’ and insert ‘may’”.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The amendment is re-moved but not removed—yet. I fully accept the spirit in which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, re-moved it. As he recognises, this is not entirely consequential. We could get a turnout of 80 per cent and yet, with this change, we would still create a power rather than an obligation. I do not need to elaborate, as the point has been made. The Government cannot accept the amendment. In the spirit in which the noble Lord re-moved it, I ask him to withdraw it.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My understanding when I was a Minister was that, when an amendment was carried, the Government would bring forward amendments to tidy up the Bill to reflect the position in relation to the plain intent of the amendment—in this case, Amendment A1. We always did this and we expect the Government to make the rest of the Bill reflect the effect of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I apologise. I was keen to find out the position of the Government in relation to this. What the Chief Whip said was unhelpful. It is important for the Government to state their position.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, the vote took place only a few hours ago and the Government are still to consider how they will respond to it. In answer to the noble and learned Lord’s question, this is neither a consequential amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and I have indicated, nor is it a tidying-up one, because it does not tidy up. It goes much further than that. Indeed, it breaks the linkage, because it would make the power permissive rather than a duty. As I indicated, that could therefore mean that the power was there in any circumstance. Even if there was an 80 per cent turnout at the referendum with a 75 per cent vote in favour, the effect would not be to oblige the order to be brought forward to implement a yes vote. That was not what the House voted for and therefore I cannot accept the noble Lord’s amendment, which I think he fully understands.
Lord Rooker
I do. I do not want to fall out with my noble and learned friend but I accept the distinction that the Chief Whip gave in respect of this amendment. The position is the same as with Amendments A2 and 7B, where one is consequential on a change in the date. This looks simple and it is simple. The point is that the House knew what the situation was with the date change, just as it does with Amendment A1. In the morning after they have slept on it, the Government may take a view and say, “We’re going down the other place. We’re going to get this kicked out anyway”. That is a tough call when the support of the Cross Benches is taken into account. However, some rewriting of other parts of the Bill is required—it is not just a question of “may” or “must”—and I fully accept that. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, I do not intend to address Amendments 12 or 15. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, spoke in the earlier debate on Amendment A1 moved by my noble friend Lord Rooker, and I follow his lead in saying that we do not intend to pursue these amendments.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, we have had another interesting debate on, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, indicated, the difference between the amendments we are discussing here and those which were debated earlier. I only wish that the strength of the argument deployed by the noble Lord against thresholds had been sufficient to persuade everyone to abstention, even if I was unable to do that, but that did not happen.
The manuscript amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, which would mean that 25 per cent of the electorate would have to vote yes is a reflection of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, which seeks that 33 per cent of the electorate should vote yes. We then have a straightforward 50 per cent eligibility to vote proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, which the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, spoke to, regarding the individual constituent parts of the United Kingdom. I acknowledge also that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, did not speak to the amendment in her name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan.
I think the arguments against thresholds were put very eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and are a cogent argument as to why the threshold-against turnout, particularly although not exclusively, does not necessarily lead to fairness compared with a straight situation where people are invited to vote and the majority wins. But the proposals that relate to a threshold that the yes vote has to reach are particularly pernicious. Earlier the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, referred to the 40 per cent threshold that was imposed on the Scotland and Wales referendums in 1979. The Welsh referendum did not arise because there was a very strong no vote, but although 64 per cent of the electorate turned out in Scotland and a majority voted in favour of devolution, it was not implemented for another 20 years. It did not settle the question. It left, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said earlier, a bad taste. Of all thresholds, it does not satisfy the electorate and particularly those who campaign and those who would seek a yes vote.
The amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, spoke to on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, would seek a requirement of a majority vote in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, rather than a simple majority of all votes taken together. This is a UK-wide referendum on what the electoral system should be to elect the House of Commons in the United Kingdom Parliament. I believe it transcends particular localities or regions. The pros and cons of the system will be debated and considered by people regardless of where they live.
In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, uttered words of caution against this kind of amendment. He said that,
“to seek to set one nation within that kingdom against another kingdom is neither desirable nor wise”. [Official Report, 20/12/10; col. 827.]
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, rejected this type of amendment because,
“we should do everything to promote coherence in the United Kingdom. That means that, where we are voting on a national voting system, implementation of any referendum should be guided by what the national vote is”.—[Official Report, 20/12/10; cols. 843-4.]
If we were to find, for the sake of argument, that the rest of the United Kingdom—Wales, Northern Ireland and England—had substantially voted in favour of a change yet Scotland had a narrow majority against, it would be unacceptable that that one country with a narrow majority against should effectively exercise a veto over all other parts of the United Kingdom.
Noble Lords who have spoken to their amendments have indicated that they are not going to press them given the vote that was taken earlier. On that basis, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, my name is on this amendment as well. To slightly increase the excruciation for the noble and learned Lord, it is impossible to understand what the basis of the conditionality is. Assume that 99 per cent of the population were to vote in favour of changing the system to AV, even if something happened to prevent the Boundary Commission changes being introduced, then, as I understand the Government’s position, they will not introduce AV. Why is that? What is the logic? The only logic must be some sort of political deal. Honesty would help the noble and learned Lord a lot.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, these amendments, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has indicated, seek to undermine, even remove, the link between the commencement arrangements for the AV and for the constituencies parts of the Bill. Anyone who has ever been a political realist would recognise that in terms of a coalition one part of the Bill—the first part—had greater salience and resonance with the Liberal Democrats, and the same applied to the Conservative Party when it comes to Part 2. I believe in equality of votes across the United Kingdom and I have not had difficulty, therefore, in arguing that case.
The issue of linkage has been one which we have debated from the outset. The noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, raised an issue about it as we started Committee stage and withdrew her amendment, and the parties and the coalition Government have made it very clear that these two parts are linked. The question has been raised—it was hinted at by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey—as to why, if the referendum does not produce as successful an outcome as the Liberal Democrats would wish to see, we are tied in, as it were, with the boundary change. Quite apart from the fact that, as I have already indicated, there is something right in principle about trying to seek greater equality among constituencies, as a liberal and a democrat I would find it very difficult to say, if the people had expressed their view in a referendum and said no, that somehow or other we should try and thwart another part of this Bill which is linked.
There is nothing wrong in parties entering into an agreement that they then make their best endeavours to deliver; in fact it is honourable and perfectly proper. I believe both parts of this Bill hang together and are linked. They give the people a say as to whether they want to change the way in which the House of Commons is elected while also ensuring that the House of Commons is elected, be it on first past the post or on the alternative vote, in constituencies that are much nearer to being equal.
On that basis I would invite the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lipsey
As the Minister was making his remarks the unworthy thought occurred to me that perhaps we should have a referendum on the constituency changes. You would get a jolly good turnout in Cornwall and people in the Isle of Wight would be flocking to the polls with those from Brecon and Radnor and Anglesey, all to say no to this. Then the Minister would be able to say, “As the British people have spoken, I cannot force this down their throats”. That perhaps is a little too much. The boundary changes will no doubt, if agreed by this House and by Parliament, go ahead at the end of the day. There seems little point in pushing the matter any further and I therefore beg to withdraw my amendment.
Lord McNally
(b) does not affect any election held before the first parliamentary general election following that day.”
Lord McNally
My Lords, this amendment removes the power in Clause 8(4) to make a transitional or saving provision when implementing the AV provisions through an order made under Clause 8(1). Instead, it inserts the provision that any order made under Clause 8(1) will not affect any election held before the first parliamentary election following that day.
The Government have brought forward this amendment in response to the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that the power in Clause 8(4) should be subject to the negative procedure. This was on the grounds that,
“the power to include transitional and saving provision may determine which form of voting system is to apply in the case of a particular parliamentary election. That is a significant power, which ought to be subject to Parliamentary control”.
This Government attach great importance to the views of this and other Select Committees, and we have reflected carefully on the committee’s recommendations. As my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace indicated in Committee, we had envisaged that in the event of a yes vote in the referendum, this power might be used to provide that any parliamentary by-elections held between the commencement of the AV provisions and the subsequent general election would take place under the existing first past the post system. That is because the Government take the view that it would not be appropriate in the intervening period between the commencement of these provisions and the subsequent general election for by-elections to take place under the AV system, since that would have the result that the House of Commons would contain Members elected under two different electoral systems.
The Government are content to accept the committee’s conclusion that the issue of the powers in Clause 8(4) should be addressed. However, the effect of applying parliamentary procedure to the powers proposed would run contrary to the Government’s stated intention that the referendum on the voting system should be binding. Moreover, this House has already expressed its view on this issue by voting on the first day in Committee against an amendment to make the referendum indicative. In order to meet the Committee’s concern, the Government have instead brought forward this amendment, which removes the powers in Clause 8(4) and instead makes the position on by-elections held in the period between the AV provision coming into force and the first parliamentary election on AV clear in the Bill. This provision goes further than the committee’s recommendation by making the Government’s intentions absolutely clear in the Bill. On reflection, we think this is preferable to leaving the issue to future secondary legislation, which would be the effect of following the committee’s recommendation. I beg to move this amendment, and I hope that the House will support it.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
I welcome the noble Lord, Lord McNally, back to front-line service on this exciting Bill. We have missed him a lot in every single respect. He has explained that very—
Lord McNally
Since this is my only opportunity, I thank those on the Labour Benches for sending me a bouquet of cut flowers. After MI5 had dismantled it, it was put in a vase in my room.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
And did they find what we hid in it? We genuinely welcome the noble Lord back. He is very popular on our Benches. He has explained this very clearly. We have no problem with it. We think the critical point that he is making is that by-elections after the passage of the Order in Council that brings the boundary changes into effect, which is the last stage in bringing in AV after a yes vote, will not be conducted under AV until after the first general election is conducted after AV. We have no problem with that.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, Amendments 16B, 16C, 16E and 16F are intended to substitute for the optional preference AV system the obligatory preference AV system. We touched upon this issue in an earlier debate, and on the first day in Committee my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours spoke very powerfully indeed on this topic. I none the less ask your Lordships’ indulgence to permit me to say a very few words about this because it is an issue of prime importance in this Bill.
My amendments, if they are technically valid, would replace the Queensland system, which is what the Government are proposing in the Bill, with the Australian federal system, and there is a very important difference. If you are voting in an Australian federal election to the Australian House of Representatives, you are required to vote for all the candidates on the ballot paper in the order of your preference. If you fail to do so, your vote is invalid. In the optional preference version of AV that applies in Queensland, you do not need to vote in order of preference for all the candidates; you may, if you prefer, vote for only one candidate. It is quite instructive to see what has happened in Australia over the years. The system that now operates in Queensland was introduced in 1992. Initially, when that was done, very few voters failed to express all their preferences in rank order, as had been their tradition—only about 20 per cent, initially. However, as time went by, more and more of them realised that they did not need to cast all these preference votes and they stopped doing so in very considerable numbers.
The turning point came in 2001, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours told the House in Committee, when the Australian Labor Party ran a “just one vote” campaign, because it had realised that it was more likely to be in the interests of their candidates that they should discourage people from exercising all the preferences that they might. To concentrate all their votes on one candidate is termed “plumping”, a term originally coined in 19th century England when elections to school boards were introduced. Under that system, an elector was permitted to exercise perhaps 20 votes—a vote for every member of the school board—but they were allowed to cast all their votes for the same candidate. The object of that provision was to try to ensure that representatives of Christian minorities were represented on school boards. However, what actually happened in practice, very interestingly, was that it was organised that people would plump or concentrate their votes in support of women candidates, because it was felt to be desirable that women should serve on school boards. That plumping was very beneficial to the feminist cause in the 1880s and thereabouts. The term has been borrowed in Queensland.
The result of the practice of plumping in Queensland, as we are told by the academic authority of Messrs Rallings and Thrasher from the University of Plymouth, is that in 2009, 63 per cent of those who turned out at the state elections in Queensland voted for just one candidate—and, in some constituencies, the proportion was as high as 73 per cent. Even when the political parties urged their supporters to use their preference votes in the manner associated with AV, they did so decreasingly. For example, the Greens urged their voters to exercise all preference votes, and to exercise their second preference in support of Labor, but very large numbers—46 per cent—of those who gave their first preference to the Greens did not do so; they made no other choice. We have seen the same effect in the London mayoral elections, where there is a modified version of AV in the supplementary vote system. A significant percentage—perhaps one in five voters—vote for only one candidate.
I am not a supporter of AV, but if the proponents of AV want to see the benefits that they profess that AV would confer, I suggest that they would do better to have the proper AV system—the obligatory preference system—rather than the one that is being proposed in this Bill. If we have only optional preference voting under AV in this country, it will rapidly turn into a pretty close replica of the first past the post system. People will scratch their heads and ask why on earth they have been through all this palaver, why we have had a referendum, and why—if they did so—they have voted for an alternative vote system that turns out to be remarkably similar to the first past the post system that they have rejected. This needs very careful thought, and it is not too late for the Government to give it that thought. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, would provide that, under the alternative vote system, voters would be required to express a preference for every candidate standing at the election. As he indicated in moving his amendment, we had some debate on a related issue earlier in the evening. In the Bill as drafted, by contrast, voters may express a preference for as few or as many candidates as they wish—indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, observed, even just for one. We believe that this approach gives maximum choice to voters. We would not support a system where voters were required to express preferences for all the candidates standing at the election.
In Committee, my noble friend the Leader of the House explained that the Government believe that the optional preferential form of the alternative vote system is the right form of AV to be put before the people. There is a genuine issue here and a genuine debate, but we believe that for elections to the other place, if voters are to be able to express preferences, it is only right that they should be able to express as many or as few preferences as they choose; their ability to limit their preferences should not be constrained in the way that the noble Lord suggests.
Furthermore, the optional preferential form of the alternative vote avoids putting voters in the position where they are obliged to vote positively and to give a preference for political parties that may be wholly distasteful to them, such as those on the extremes of politics. Indeed, it is not impossible that people might be dissuaded from casting a vote at all if they felt that they had to go to the ballot box and put a number beside a party that they found extremely abhorrent. That would be the opposite of what those who support the alternative vote would say is the aim of using it as the system for electing Members to the House of Commons.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, mentioned Australia. In those elections where a compulsory form of AV is used, voters must indicate an order of preference for every candidate on the ballot paper, as he described, in order for their vote to be valid at all. The noble Lord’s amendment does not specify what would happen if a voter did not express a preference for all candidates. Would that vote be declared invalid? It is not clear what would happen in those circumstances. There is a danger, of course, that it could risk disfranchising voters who did not wish to express a preference for all candidates standing at the election. Against that background, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Rooker
I am reluctant, but I cannot resist this, because of what happened in Committee. The noble and learned Lord has just deployed the case against the compulsory system and I agree with him on that, but is it the case that when the AV system in the Bill, the optional system, comes to be deployed, the Deputy Prime Minister will not be able to cite a single other democratic country where it is used to elect the national parliament—not one? Have I got that right? I have missed something in the debate otherwise. In other words, we are saying that it is better than the compulsory preference system, but nobody uses it to elect a national parliament. All the examples given tonight—and the provincial elections in Canada can be used as well—are for state parliaments and state Governments in Australia, not for the national Parliament. The national House in Australia, of course, has the compulsory preference system. This optional AV system is not used anywhere else in the world, but that is what is going to be offered to the British people. Have I got that right?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The simple answer is that I do not know and I would not want to confirm something that I do not know.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, says from a sedentary position that it is right. Be that as it may, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, prefaced his remarks by saying that he did not support the compulsory system and preferred the optional preferential system. If we believe that that is a better system than the compulsory system, I think that that is what we should stick with. If it is the case that there is not another national legislature that does it, so be it—we are devising a system for the House of Commons.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I think that it is clearly implicit in my amendments that, if people did not use all their preferences, their vote would be invalid, as is the case in federal elections in Australia. The noble and learned Lord rejects what I suggest; be it on his own head. If Ministers in the Government wish to make a botch of their attempt at electoral reform, so be it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.