Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Alan Reid Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I presume that they must, because that is why we are now going to have all three of these things on the same day in Northern Ireland, despite the experiences in Scotland, which were aggressively excoriated by the Liberal Democrats when they were on the Opposition Benches—although they seem to have forgotten all the speeches that they made then.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, the difference is that the Scottish council elections are held under the single transferable vote, so the voter has to number the ballot paper with their first, second and third preferences. In this case, all ballot papers will be marked with a single cross, so the possibility of confusion does not arise as it would if we were having two elections on the same day under different electoral systems.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is a Liberal Democrat, and I am sure that he knows all about confusion, especially at the moment. I think that he is trying to quibble to end up with a position that he can proudly defend. In 2007, he would probably have been saying that the elections should not have been held at the same time, so he should be advancing the same argument now. However, I leave that for him and his conscience.

The Welsh Affairs Committee cited Lewis Baston, the senior research fellow with Democratic Audit, who argued that the coincidence in 2015—if the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill goes through in the way that the Government intend—of a general election with Assembly elections in Wales and parliamentary elections in Scotland is even more troubling because

“the elections for Westminster and the Assembly would be taking place on different systems”—

precisely the point made by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid)—

“on the same day and, more complicatedly, on two sets of boundaries which will hardly ever correlate with each other.”

I am absolutely certain that because the hon. Gentleman is a very honourable gentleman who is always consistent with his arguments, he will therefore vote against provisions in the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill whereby elections in Scotland and Wales are to be held on the same day as the general election. I can see from his smile that I already have his vote in relation to any such amendments.

I am sorry that I have been unable to deal with all the other amendments that we tabled on Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but some of them merely repeat the other amendments to new schedule 2 as regards England. I hope that we will have an opportunity to vote on quite a number of these proposals.