Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

What compounds that excellent intervention is that just today, the Liberal Democrat MSP for Dunfermline West, who was part of the committee that looked into the 2007 election, said:

“I am determined that this confusion be avoided at all costs for next year's election to the Scottish Parliament. I am therefore very much against the inclusion of a referendum on the same day as the Scottish elections!”

I have not found anyone so far—even the Deputy Prime Minister, who is not here today—who is in favour of coupling the two events. This is not about whether the British public can cope with one or two issues at a time; it is about ensuring that the issues are properly aired.

The problems do not stop there. If the referendum is combined with the other poll, there will be complications regarding the funding limits for political parties and for the referendum campaigns. To compound matters, an additional concern has been raised about the problem of differential turnout, given that some parts of the country—notably London—have no separate elections in May 2011. That makes live the issue of thresholds, which otherwise would not be an issue in the referendum.

Some argue that one of the virtues of combining the referendum with other polls is the likelihood of an increased turnout, but the logic of that argument works both ways, in that there could be lower turnouts where no elections are taking place on the same day. Do we really want to have debates on the legitimacy of the referendum after the event? I hope that hon. Members who have tabled amendments will ensure that there is a proper debate on that theme and that other hon. Members have listened to the issues that have been raised. Depending on what happens later this evening, I might decide not to press our amendment to a vote.

Concern has been expressed that 3.5 million eligible voters are not on the register. Rushing to have the referendum in less than seven months’ time reduces the chance of those people getting on the register and taking part. That is yet another reason why we say, “Decouple the referendum from 5 May, allow further time for the work to be carried out, and allow—for those of us who are progressives and want to see a change in the voting system—a real coalition, rather than the shabby deal done by this coalition Government behind closed doors over those five or six days”.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan). I pretty well agreed with everything that he said in his excellent speech, but I wonder whether he might have been giving a slightly different speech today if the Labour party had won 10 more seats and there had been a Lib-Lab Government. However, we will never know—the past is another country. We are where we are, and we have to look at the situation that we have. I am tempted just to adopt the arguments given by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who made a first-rate speech, but there is a danger that we might complicate matters.

There are clearly a lot of political calculations going on, and I do not really know why this is such a macho issue for the Government, or why everything is being rolled out to win the vote tonight, as the Government undoubtedly will. I am not sure why the Deputy Prime Minister is so keen for the referendum to be on the same day as other elections. I suspect that there was a political calculation in the beginning. We can dismiss the argument that the reason why the Deputy Prime Minister wants to have the referendum on the same day is that he wants to save money. We can accept that that is a canard, as it was not his primary motivation. After all, the cost of a general election is some £80 million, and there is no doubt that if an AV system were introduced, that cost would rise steeply, as enormous costs would be tied up in the whole process of redistribution and cutting the number of seats. It simply does not wash that the primary motivation for having the referendum on the same day is the cost. There must have been some political reason, and I presume that that reason was that the Deputy Prime Minister thought that he would have more chance of winning the AV referendum if it were held on the same day.