Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

William Cash Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes what would be a good point if it were not for the coalition Government’s clear commitment to bring forward a draft Bill in the near future—early this year—to reform the other place. If we were not doing that, he would have a solid case, but given that we are proposing to do that, his case falls away and there is just a timing difference.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Winnick]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

I will give way to my hon. Friend and then to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Cash]

Would my hon. Friend be interested to know that some of us are beginning to think, in the light of the forthright position that the House of Lords has taken on the threshold, which we will come to later in the debate, that that House may be more trusted by the electorate than those on the Government Benches?

[Mr Harper]

Mr Deputy Speaker, you would not expect me to be tempted to debate the threshold now, because we will come to it later. I do not agree with my hon. Friend. There is a good case for electing Members to the other place. He knows that the coalition Government have committed to a wholly or mainly elected House. We are in the process of drafting that legislation. From what he says, it is clear that he does not agree with that, but I know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you do not want me to go into the case for or against House of Lords reform in this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I shall treat the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks as political posturing and nonsense that have nothing to do with the Lords amendments. On his second point, I shall explain why I will be urging the House, in a consistent way, to take the same view on these matters that it took in Committee and on Report, whereas the hon. Gentleman, if those on his Front Bench follow suit, would seem to be demonstrating a bit of shameless opportunism.

[Mr Cash]

Does the Minister not think that it might be a little shameless to leave the House of Lords to discuss questions relating to voting in constituencies by our own constituents?

[Mr Harper]

I am sorry; I did not quite understand my hon. Friend’s point. We debated and voted on his proposal on thresholds in this House, and it was defeated by 549 votes to 31—[Interruption.] Well, my hon. Friend should have another go, because I did not really follow the point he was making.

[Mr Cash]

This is an electoral reform proposal in which we are asking the electorate to decide in a referendum what they want to do. Does he not think it a little shameless that the question of whether that decision should be subjected to the 40% test should be decided by the House of Lords rather than by the House of Commons? Perhaps my hon. Friend can answer if I put it that way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), I am a supporter of the alternative vote system, as I have made clear, not least in a tract that few people read, to which I contributed with my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) in 1986. I also spelt it out in this House on 9 February 2010 in a very big debate on AV. On the issue of consistency, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) may recall that he voted against the whole idea of having a referendum on AV then, so there is always a place in heaven for sinners to repent. On the threshold, I say to him that the excuse of technical defects in an amendment is the last refuge of a Minister who has nothing to say. If the only problems with Lord Rooker’s amendment are technical defects, he should ask the parliamentary counsel to draft amendments and they will go through like a dose of salts.

On the principle, the Minister was arguing against an all-or-nothing threshold, saying that if we did not reach the threshold—this is a very different one from that for the Scottish Assembly in 1979—the whole referendum result would be nugatory. That is not the case here, because this is a skilfully put together threshold. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda says, it does not render nugatory a result on a 39% or 35% turnout; it brings the matter back to this House. However, were the turnout derisory, we would of course need to think again. For those reasons, I strongly urge hon. Members from all parts of the House, regardless of their view on the merits or otherwise of AV, to vote for this Lords amendment.

[Mr Cash]

Last night, Lord Rooker, to whom I pay great tribute, said that his amendment required tweaking, which is what my amendment (a) does. In a nutshell, it says that if the threshold of 40% is not reached, the Minister would have an obligation to introduce legislation to repeal the alternative vote provisions. Why do I say that?

[Mr MacNeil]

rose—

[Mr Cash]

I will not give way.

I say that for a very simple reason, which is that when this House votes to pass legislation for a referendum so that the people can decide, just as it is necessary, according to the principles of the Bill, for there to be a system of preference voting that is said to be fair, so it has to be fair for the electorate as a whole to know that when the decision is taken there is a proper threshold. According to all the constitutional authorities, there is no credibility in a referendum whose turnout is less than 40%—I am talking about turnout, not a yes vote, which is what the Cunningham amendment related to in the 1970s. I tabled my amendment in order to be useful, to help the Government get this right and to help the Lords, who have done a great job, ensure fairness for the electorate by providing that a 40% threshold is the principle on which the provisions should go forward.

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has referred to the wrecking amendments we debated and voted on in Committee. Essentially, what we have tonight are wrecking amendments that are bubble-wrapped. No matter what the sophistry of Opposition Front Benchers or anyone else, we know what the intention is: to put a serious and direct brake on the possibility of the referendum being won.