Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

If my hon. Friend would wait until I have developed my remarks further, he might be a little happier. If we are to allow the Electoral Commission to publish some information—I shall come on to the details later—we must allow it to be flexible, so putting in these extra hurdles is not sensible. The commission already produces lots of guidance—admittedly not perhaps in such charged circumstances—without any sort of approval, and it works fairly well. Amendment 247 starts from the laudable assumption that we want to ensure that information provided to voters in the referendum—and most certainly if it is provided by the Electoral Commission—is neutral and fair. I fear, however, that it might have an unforeseen consequence by preventing the Electoral Commission from publishing information or giving the yes and no sides a veto in the 28 days before votes are cast. It might encourage the Electoral Commission to publish information earlier than that, which I do not think would be particularly helpful for voters—effectively stopping the publication of information during what voters would perceive as the campaign period. The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) made a good point when he said that giving either player on the pitch an effective veto might be a recipe for grief and mischief. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex has anticipated my next argument and tried to clear it out of the way. When asked about the neutrality of the Electoral Commission last week, he said that he had ““the highest respect”” for Jenny Watson and that"““because of her previous position, she will want to be seen to be as impartial as possible””.—[Official Report, 12 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 204.]" I think that is correct. As to the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham, I strongly suspect that when the commission considers what factual information it is going to publish in practice, it will come to the same conclusion as the Government. Before Second Reading, the Government published a short factsheet, which we placed in the Library. It was on the first-past-the-post system—for want of a better description—and the alternative vote. Although the two Ministers involved have a difference of opinion on the outcome of the referendum, we were very clear that the Government document needed to be neutral. The amount of information that can be produced on the two voting systems—the current one and the proposed new system—without being drawn into their merits, is very limited. That is why we ended up producing a factual and neutral document, not a very comprehensive one, which we have placed in the Library. I suspect that the Electoral Commission will reach the same conclusion. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham thus made a good point, and, as I say, I believe that the commission will reach the same conclusion. That is not to say that there is no value in producing the information. Research done earlier into the question that should be asked revealed that a number of members of the public did not understand terms such as ““House of Commons”” and ““Parliament””—even basic information like that. We might consider providing such information unnecessary, but it might be of great use to enable voters to make a decision. A great deal of information that is neutral and factual can help to get voters up to a level that we would take for granted, without trespassing on the merits of the arguments behind the two voting systems.