Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

The first thing for me to do is draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the part of the Bill that talks about the order-making power. If there were a by-election, it would not be practical for different Members of the House to be elected by different electoral systems. The new system would come in at the general election so that every Member of the House was elected by the same electoral system. It would be invidious to do otherwise. The clause sets out the key amendments to the parliamentary election rules, which are the conduct rules for parliamentary elections. It inserts two new rules—37A and 45A—which concern how votes are cast by voters, how votes are counted and how the winning candidate is elected. Further amendments are set out in schedule 6, which will be considered later. Of the range of voting systems, each has its advantages and disadvantages. As I have said, the Government are going to put before voters either the first-past-the-post system or this version of the alternative vote. In developing the provisions in the Bill, we have taken into account legislation and practices used elsewhere in the UK where preferences are used, as well as the experience of voting systems in other countries, such as Australia, where AV—albeit not the same version as we have proposed—is used in elections to the House of Representatives and in a number of state legislative assemblies. We have developed provisions that we think are best suited to the House of Commons, drawing on UK and international experience. As we have already set out, voters will, by virtue of our new rule 37A, rank candidates on the ballot paper in order of preference by marking 1 against their first preference, 2 against their second preference and so on. It is important for Members who were not present for the debate on amendment 62 to recognise that it is the optional preferential system, so voters do not have to vote for all candidates; they can vote for as many or as few as they wish. That differs from the version used in Australia for elections to the House of Representatives, where voters are required to rank all candidates in order of preference. The Australian experience is bandied about quite a lot, but it is important for Members to recognise that although there are some similarities, this is a different system from that used in Australia. New rule 45A sets out how the votes are to be counted. Candidates must secure more than 50% of the votes in the count to be elected, so if, following the counting of voters' first preferences, a candidate has secured more than 50% of the votes in the count at that stage, he or she is declared the winner and is elected—and I am sure greatly relieved. If there is no winning candidate at that stage, a further stage of counting would be required. Paragraph (3) of new rule 45A provides that the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated from the counting process and each vote originally allocated to them will be reallocated to a candidate remaining in the count according to the next preference expressed on the ballot paper. If, after that stage, a candidate has more votes than the remaining candidates put together—so more than 50% left in the count—he or she is elected. If there is no winner at that stage, the counting process continues until someone has more than 50% of the votes remaining in the count and is declared the winner. New rule 45B sets out what information the returning officer makes available about the progress of the count at the end of each counting stage, except at the final counting stage, at which the candidate is elected and the result is declared under rule 50. That makes sure that everyone knows what is going on. In answer to the hon. Member for Rhondda, I have already set out how the order-making power works. I hope that Members are clear in their mind about which form of AV the Government are proposing that we ask voters about. It strikes me that there is a job of work to be done during the campaign, because although Members are probably relative anoraks when it comes to understanding electoral systems—after all, that is how we get here, and we all have electoral systems very close to our heart—there was a fair bit of confusion this afternoon about how amendment 62 would work, and how the AV system will work as set out in clause 7, so whatever side of the debate we shall be on in the electoral campaign, I think we all have our work cut out. I would therefore ask that clause 7 stand part of the Bill, so that we can move closer to the day when it gets Royal Assent and we can engage in that referendum campaign.