Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Skelmersdale Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I thought I heard my noble friend be told by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that not voting would count as a no vote in the referendum. This worries me deeply. With my noble friend’s amendment, Parliament will be able to decide, however many people vote for or against AV. That is my understanding. By not voting, people will not contribute to a no vote barring AV being adopted. It is merely a question of whether it becomes automatically binding on Parliament or whether it becomes something that Parliament can judge. I was deeply worried by the description of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Skelmersdale)]

My Lords, the House should remind itself that we are at Third Reading. The amendment has not yet been moved. There will be an opportunity for any noble Lord to address questions to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, when he decides what to do with his amendment in due course. May I take it that this amendment has been moved?

[Lord Rooker]

I was about to say, “I so move”.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Unfortunately, there is a printing mistake in paragraph (a), which should at the end read,

“as defined in section 2”,

not just, “as defined in 2”.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, this is an important point. I completely agree with my noble friend Lord Rooker on the meaning of his amendment. I completely support him when he says that this is not a fatal threshold, by which I mean that if more than 40 per cent of those entitled to turn out vote, there is no issue because the turnout threshold is met. If the figure is below 40 per cent, the position is exactly the same as in the Scotland Act and the Government of Wales Act, in which case it becomes an advisory referendum and it is for Parliament then to decide whether to pass an Act of Parliament. I say with the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that his question was misleading as far as the public are concerned in relation to the threshold that has been put in and was also misleading in relation to what had happened in the House of Commons in this regard.

The second issue is a statutory construction issue. I do not think that it is necessary to put in a definition of “electorate” in order to make Clause 1(2), as amended on Report, make sense. Clause 1(2) states:

“If less than 40% of the electorate vote in the referendum, the result shall not be binding”.

The “electorate” in the referendum is defined in Clause 2, as amended on Report. In answer to the Electoral Commission’s question posed in its briefing, that will include people who are not on the roll at the beginning of the period but are put on to it during the campaign. Therefore, I do not think that any amendment is required in relation to that.

The Electoral Commission asked what would happen in relation to a spoilt ballot paper and whether the person who spoils their ballot paper, whether deliberately or by mistake, is counted as somebody who has voted in the referendum in order to satisfy Clause 1(2), as amended on Report. My view is that they should be counted as having voted in the referendum in those circumstances but I should be interested to hear what the Government have to say about that. I suspect that there is an answer to that which probably does not require amendment. On the basis that the first question raised by the Electoral Commission has an easy answer and the second one has an answer, I suspect that amendment is not required.

The third issue, which is separate from those two matters of statutory construction, is the approach of this House to amendments. Where an amendment is passed by this House which is going to go back to the Commons, whether the Government agree with it or not and irrespective of whether they intend to seek to persuade the Commons to overrule it, the approach, as I understand it, is that the Government, who have access to parliamentary counsel and a full team, do what is necessary to make the Bill whole in the sense of it being consistent with the amendment that this House has agreed to so that when the House of Commons is addressing the amendment, which may be opposed by the Government, it is addressing a Bill which is consistent in all its parts. This would normally be done by amendments from the mover, but quite often it is not. I would expect the Government not to allow an inconsistent Bill to go back to the Commons but to move such consequential amendments as are necessary to make sense of the Bill. In those circumstances, I take the fact that the Government are moving no amendments in respect of my noble friend Lord Rooker’s threshold amendment, if I may call it that, to mean that the Government, having consulted with parliamentary counsel and the Bill team, take the view that no issue that requires further amendment has been raised. That may well be right and is, in effect, the opinion I have expressed on the two difficulties posed by the Electoral Commission in its briefing to the House.

For the purposes of process, which is important, I should be grateful if the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, could confirm that the broad approach I have defined is the one taken by the Government.