Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Geoffrey Cox Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

Is not the point about the referendum that it will change the rules of the constitutional landscape for ever? Now is therefore the time to focus our attention on who should exercise the franchise on that critical question, which will affect how Members are elected to the House for the next 100 years or more. It is different from an ordinary election.

[Mr Harper]

Given our tradition of parliamentary sovereignty, my hon. Friend does not set out the position accurately. If we have a referendum next year, as I hope we do, and if the people of the country decide to change the electoral system, as I hope they do not, it is open to a future Parliament to hold another referendum. The referendum will not change the position for ever—nothing is for ever in a parliamentary democracy. I do not buy the argument that, just because we are having the referendum, we are required to change the franchise over and above the one that we use for parliamentary elections. Choosing the Government of the country is a significant matter. Indeed, many—perhaps more on the Government side of the Committee—would argue that Governments who are elected can make significant changes. Governments took us into the European Union and signed treaties that bind us unless we decide specifically to opt out of them. We might not have been entirely happy that Governments did that, but we did not challenge their right to do so. The Government’s position is that we have stuck with the franchise. However, I have listened carefully to what my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West said, and this is an issue worth revisiting, but this Bill is not the right place to make the change.

[Mr Cox]

Is my hon. Friend seriously suggesting that if the country opts to change the voting system to the alternative vote—I do not think that it will and I fervently hope that it will not—a future Parliament could never turn the clock back and restore first past the post?

[Mr Harper]

Of course it could. If the voting system were changed, the public might reconsider and want to change, either back to the old system or to another one. That has been the experience of other countries that have reformed their electoral systems. It is perfectly sensible to say that that could happen, and my hon. Friend is not really setting out an argument for why we should change in this case.