Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Alan Reid Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

No, that is not true. [Interruption.] Yes, it is interesting to hear an argument for consistency from a Scottish nationalist. That is almost as interesting as hearing that argument from a Liberal Democrat. [Interruption.] I note that the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) was already laughing before I said that.

The Minister cited me, and claimed that I was going to say all sorts of things. Actually, in Committee in this Chamber I said that

“there is no fixed determined policy that we are completely and utterly in all cases implacably opposed to thresholds. Nor, for that matter, is there a belief that we ardently should have thresholds.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 847.]

My point is that there are times when thresholds might be suitable, and there are times when thresholds will not be suitable. Indeed, the Minister quoted a bit of my speech, but I went on to say that

“I fully understand that there are others who say that because of the way in which the Government are pushing forward with this legislation and because it is an implementing referendum, a threshold would be appropriate.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 849.]

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

I ask the hon. Gentleman to cast his mind back to 1979, when we had a Scottish referendum under the 40% turnout rule. A majority voted yes, the whole issue festered for 18 years, and when the Labour party came back to power and it had another referendum, it rightly learned the lessons of the past and did not have a 40% threshold. Will he please learn the lesson of the past?

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. That was why I was opposed to the versions of thresholds that were brought forward in Committee. There were two different versions. One was that it was necessary to get 25% of the electorate to vote yes, as well as more people voting yes than voting no. The other was a 40% threshold. If neither of those two conditions were reached, the result was to be an automatic no and we were to stick with first past the post.

That is not what this amendment’s threshold would do. This is a very different referendum, and consequently needs a very different style of threshold. All this threshold would do is say that Parliament ought to have a second thought. It would say that if we do not get up to 40%—if, for instance, the turnout in England is 15% or 20 %, whereas in Scotland and Wales it is closer to 43%, 44% or 45%—there ought to be a moment when Parliament thinks again about the implementing process in going forward.