Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

The Deputy Prime Minister and I have looked very carefully at the submissions Mr Gould made to the Scottish Affairs Committee, and also at the other submissions. We have also looked at the relevant sections of the Gould report, and the analysis is not the same. We are not talking about multiple voting systems. We are talking about a straightforward question with a yes or no answer. I simply fail to see why that would cause an incredible amount of problems. I think voters are perfectly able to distinguish between the polls. On Second Reading, I said to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) that he was understating the qualities of his own constituents and the Scottish people in general. I think they are perfectly capable of making judgments about who they want to represent them in the Scottish Parliament—as, indeed, are Welsh and Northern Irish voters in respect of the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies—and of making a judgment about what the voting system should be for this Parliament. I think they are perfectly capable of making that judgment, and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not agree.