Government of Wales Bill

We now come to one of the meatier sections of the Bill, as I am sure the Secretary of State appreciates; I see him grinning. It is indicative of the strength of feeling on this side of the House that only one amendment in this group is supported only by Conservative Members, that only one is supported only by Liberal Members, and that only one is supported only by Plaid Cymru Members. The rest are supported jointly by Plaid Cymru and ourselves. That illustrates the strength of feeling about what the Government are attempting to do in clause 7. When the Labour Government came to power in 1997, there was only one system of voting, which was understood by everyone in the country; first past the post. Now, we have five systems of voting throughout the United Kingdom. We have the first past the post system, also known as the plurality rule, for the Westminster constituencies and local council elections. We have the supplementary vote, which is used in the London mayoral elections and 12 local mayoral elections. The list proportional system—proportional representation—is used for the UK European elections, except in Northern Ireland. The single transferable vote system is used in Northern Ireland for Assembly elections, local elections and European parliamentary elections. Finally, there is the additional member system, which is used for elections to the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Greater London Assembly.