Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Kevin Brennan(13 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr MacNeil
My “all-points Celtic” is checking out. It was also Scotland. It was a Celtic issue, and it hit across the nations and a region of the UK—he says, looking around him! However, there are very serious and important points here, and I hope that the Government will listen. At this late stage, it is not too late.
Kevin Brennan
It might not have been entirely inappropriate for the hon. Lady to intervene, because, as I recall from my visit to Corby as a young man, most of it was populated by Scots and Welsh people, who were there to set up the steelworks at the time.
On the date and the combination of polls, however, is it not also an own goal on behalf of the Government and, particularly, the Deputy Prime Minister? He is demotivating those electoral reformers among us who would have been prepared to go out alongside colleagues from other political parties to campaign for the alternative vote. We will now campaign with our parties to help our Welsh Assembly colleagues get elected, and not devote the energy that we otherwise would have done to the Deputy Prime Minister’s cause?
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman is bang on. The Deputy Prime Minister, not content with having some opposition to his aspirations for a change in the voting system, has moved on to look for even more opponents to changes in the voting system, and he has succeeded in that end, because he has absolutely demotivated those people who will have greater priorities when the day comes in May. Their priority will not be the voting system for elections to the UK Parliament, and that is where the mistake lies.
Again, I ask the Minister to speak to his friends in the other place, because that might make quite a difference. Of course, there are those who might feel that there are elements within the governing coalition who are happy to see a demotivated support force for a change in the voting system. I will leave that question hanging.