Elections: Alternative Vote System

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

Gosh, we are getting a lot of information today. This is all extremely useful for the electorate. In less than 48 hours, the power will pass to them. I have always been one of those politicians who trusts the people and I will wait to find out what they say. As to the earlier point on the Australian experience, the noble Lord is perfectly right.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

As the noble Lord has just acknowledged, the reality is that under AV the count would take longer. Will it not be the case that if we were to have an AV system, people would expect to know the result of the general election quickly, as they are accustomed to do? For that reason, is the Minister not absolutely right that if we were to have AV it would be inevitable that we would have to invest in counting machines?

[Lord McNally]

I think we have already had at least three questions on that to which the answer was no. As the noble Lord will know from his experience on the AV Bill, the Government are remaining aloof from the debate itself. However, I found it interesting that a Political Studies Association author at the University of Reading thought that the introduction of AV would imply an annual cost across a five-year electoral cycle of around only 30p per person. That sounds to me like a bargain.