Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I have reservations about amendment 136. I fully understand the spirit in which the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) argued for it, but I have concerns about requiring the agreement of the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission. Would the Committee have to agree on absolutely every bit of material, therefore having some sort of editorial control, with only their imprimatur and nihil obstat determining what goes? I am not sure that it would not put the Committee in a potentially invidious position—indeed, hon. Members have already asked questions about what side of the argument the Committee members are on. The safeguard that the amendment is trying to achieve might turn out to be more complicated and hazardous. I prefer amendment 136 to amendment 247, however, because the latter would basically create not a difficult position for MPs sitting on the Speaker's Committee, but an absolute veto by one campaign on the work of the Electoral Commission and indeed on the seemly and properly informed conduct of the entire referendum. To give each campaign an outright veto would be to give them too tempting an opportunity. Some of us come from territories where we are used to vetoes lying around the place, and they do not usually stay there as unused ornaments; they end up being used deliberately, effectively and destructively.