Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Broadly speaking, I do not disagree with the main thrust of the amendments that the Parliamentary Secretary has moved. However, I point out that we are debating 26 amendments in this group alone. The Parliamentary Secretary has already referred to the fact that he has written to hon. Members to say that he will table 100 pages of amendments today. I do not think that he has made them available to the Committee yet. They are necessary only because they provide for combining polls. Indeed, the majority of the amendments that we are currently discussing are necessary only because the Government had not spotted early enough that they needed to provide legislatively for the combination of polls in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England, and separately and differently in each because the law governing each of the three devolved nations is different, and in England, the elections relating to local authorities must have separate rules, too. The Parliamentary Secretary has already admitted in the letter that he sent to many of us that the amendments that he has tabled today depend on existing law in relation to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each of those territorial Offices intends to change the law for the combination of polls in the next few weeks—it was supposed to happen in mid-October, but none of the statutory instruments has been tabled yet. I see that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is in his place—[Interruption.] I am sorry: the Minister for Northern Ireland is in his place. Perhaps he should be Secretary of State, as he is a very charming chap. Now that he is having a little conversation with me, perhaps he will enlighten us as to when the statutory instruments for Northern Ireland will be available. It appears that he cannot do so. The Government do not even know when they will table the statutory instruments that will change the law, and on which some of the amendments that have been tabled today—but which we have not yet seen—depend. Without the combination of polls, none of the new amendments that the Minister has had to table today would be necessary, but the Government are still unable to tell us what they are going to do. I presume that the same is true in Wales and Scotland. That is not good enough. The Minister said that he would table further amendments at a later stage. I hope that that will be a later stage in this House, and not in the other place. He is studiously ignoring me and biting his lip. Is he able to tell us? A profound silence arises. The Minister referred to amendment 353 which, in similar language to that used in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, provides that an accounting officer would"““certify as respects the votes cast in each parliamentary constituency within his area…the number of ballot papers counted by him in that parliamentary constituency; and…the number of votes cast in favour and against to the question asked in the referendum.””" The Minister seemed to suggest that everyone agreed that that would be virtually impossible to do because it would be too expensive and difficult, and delay all the votes. However, he has already made it clear—although I stand to be corrected on this—that the counting of the referendum will happen after the counting of all other elections. He nods his assent. Consequently, it would not delay the other elections to count by parliamentary constituency. The Minister has therefore already inadvertently misled us once on this issue. The Minister also suggested that others are in broad agreement. In fact, the Electoral Commission has said that it sees no reason why the votes could not be provided by constituency—