Government of Wales Bill

The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I am referring to Committees rather than the sittings of the Assembly as a whole—the two are very different. Numerous voices, including the Richard commission, have warned the Government that if extra powers are given to the Assembly, it will need to expand. The vision laid out by the Richard commission two years ago was an 80-Member Assembly with primary powers. The Welsh Liberal Democrats endorse that vision, but it is being short-changed by the Bill. A further aspect of the Richard model was the voting system. The Government’s proposals on the Assembly’s electoral system have rightly attracted much controversy, as we have heard today, because they have abjectly failed to come up with any evidence to support their move to ban dual candidacy. However, we must see the dual candidacy debate for what it is: a major row about a minor point. By focusing so intently on it, we are guilty of missing the wider wrong. There is wide consensus on both sides of the House that problems due to low voter turnout and the public’s engagement with mainstream politics exist throughout the country. Much of that is dismissively attributed to voter apathy, but my experience shows that the public are not apathetic at all. Although I do not wish to rehash arguments that have already been heard today, many people are fundamentally disillusioned with a voting system that does not represent their will. Banning dual candidacy will do nothing to improve that situation, but introducing single transferable voting would. Even as a Lib Dem, I cannot believe that the first amendment that I am moving in the Chamber is on STV, but I am sure that my colleagues are very proud of me. STV is an inclusive and fair system. By failing to adopt it, the Government are missing a huge opportunity to put Wales in the vanguard of electoral reform. The Secretary of State would give the public a system that ensured that they got what they voted for if he was truly worried about the ““disincentives”” that he says that voters face and the"““integrity of the electoral system in the eyes of the public””.—[Official Report, 15 June 2005; Vol. 435, c. 264.]" That system is STV.