Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill (Money) (No. 3)

I did not suggest that it did. I was arguing for the virtues of an alternative vote system as an improved version of first-past-the-post. My good friend is arguing for a totally different system, which he is perfectly entitled to do, that he feels is more favourable to smaller parties. I understand his argument, but I am arguing for the alternative vote system because I believe it embodies the best aspects of first past the post, but also builds on and improves it. That is why I intend to support what I believe will be a sensible change. Let me start to conclude by responding to some of the comments made about the Jenkins report. It has been said tonight in rather reverential terms, as though the departed Lord Jenkins was a totally unbiased and disinterested individual with no vested interests whatever in the single transferable vote top-up system that he proposed. It needs to be put on the record that Lord Jenkins was an outstanding and distinguished parliamentarian: he was Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1960s Labour Government; he was Home Secretary in the 1974 Labour Government; he was the Labour nominee for President of the European Union; and he was a founder member of the Social Democratic party, which was set up, in his own words, to ““break the mould”” of politics and destroy the Labour party. He was elected to this place as an SDP Member; he then became a distinguished member of the Liberal-SDP pact.