Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Perhaps the Minister will be able to respond when he replies to the debate, because I have a few other questions in this vein. It would be my feeling that that should be the case, although I am not sure whether in law it is necessary for us to put it on the face of the Bill. I could not see it anywhere else in the schedule that pertains to this measure and consequently I presume that at some point we might need to put it into the Bill through some form of amendment. Obviously, it is important that we get this right now, because once the Bill has gone through, it will be far more complicated after the referendum—if it is successful and there is a yes vote—for us to go back to it. Secondly, on page 5 it also says that if one candidate has more votes than the others put together, that is the determining factor, rather than achieving 50% plus one of the total votes cast. Will the Minister clarify why we are using that process? I presume it is because at each subsequent stage one would not be able to guarantee that anybody was going to achieve more than the 50% plus one of the total number of votes cast, including those that were spoilt and all the rest of it. I would be grateful if the Minister could reply on that point. The section of the clause that I am more troubled by—I hope that the Minister might be able to alleviate my concerns—is subsection (4) on page 6, which states:"““The Minister may by order make any amendments to primary or secondary legislation (whenever passed or made) that are consequential on amendments made by this section or Schedule 6.””" The clause, which will be that section, and the schedule comprise a large number of substantial issues. I believe that if they were ever to be amended, they should be amended by primary legislation and not by secondary legislation. It seems on the face of it that the Bill gives an enormous power to the Minister to effect a change. For instance, I presume that this means that, if the Minister wanted to, he would be able to bring forward an order to change the provision on how votes are counted or, indeed, on how votes are to be given. For instance, one might only be able to have the system that the debate on the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) prompted. It seems to me that that would be an inappropriate amount of power to be giving to the Minister to exercise through secondary legislation. I note of course that subsections (5), (6), (7) and (8) make other provisions in relation to this matter, such as:"““An order…may not be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament””—" I understand that—and:"““Before making an order…the Minister must consult the Electoral Commission.””" However, those are not very firm locks. I know that the Minister and the Deputy Leader of the House, in the previous Parliament, much deprecated in the previous Parliament the fact that secondary legislation is unamendable and that the debate goes on only for a fixed amount of time. If we are talking about changing the electoral system, that should not be something that is brought about by secondary legislation. The Minister might be able to assuage my concerns, but our commitment was that we would come forward with an advisory referendum. The clause makes it into an implementing referendum, and we are still very unhappy about elements of this. I shall not rehearse the arguments about the date of the referendum—as the Minister knows, we disagree with that. We disagree with the combination of the polls and we also disagree with the process that is being adopted, whereby amendments are being brought forward. I have great hesitations about this clause standing part of the Bill. It changes the nature of what was promised, so I would be grateful to hear what the Minister has to say.