Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My hon. Friend knows more about local elections in England than I do, so he will correct me if I am wrong, but I presumed that such referendums would be included in the local referendums in England category. However, he is right: a series of different propositions may be put to people. Following the comprehensive spending review last week, which included a drastic attack on local government funding, many local authorities will be worrying about whether they should spend £10,000 on a registration campaign, to make sure that as many people as possible are on the register, or whether they should spend the money on keeping a swimming pool open or on some other element of their services. They may decide that the only way to protect the public services they believe local people want will be to ensure that they hold a referendum on whether they should increase the amount of money that comes in from council tax. I used to be a local government development officer for the Labour party, so I understand the argument that because between 75 and 80% of the local government budget is provided by the Government, it does not easily allow local democracy to flourish. However, if local referendums on those powers were held in May next year, it would add even greater complexity, as I think my hon. Friend was suggesting. We have tabled several amendments to new schedule 2, and I shall go through them in order. However, because of the way in which the Government have structured the amendments, it is quite complicated for most ordinary Members to understand precisely where they are. When we consider amendments to clauses, new clauses or schedules, there are line numbers on the page, but not for new schedules. Consequently, in a lengthy new schedule of 35 pages, it is sometimes difficult to find the specific provisions to which the amendments refer. Our first amendment is (a), on the notice for combined polls in England. It relates to paragraph 11, which Members can find on page 757 of the amendment paper. We suggest that there is no reason why the Government should insist that notice of poll be provided on the 15th day before the poll, when the 28th day before would perfectly easily give substantially more notice, so our amendment would replace ““15th”” with ““28th””. Our second amendment—(b)—relates to absent voter applications. Several Members have referred to postal and proxy voters, who constitute absent voters. A key issue is that someone might believe they had applied for a postal vote in respect of all elections and polls—anything where they can vote. They might not draw a distinction between an election and a referendum; they have decided never to go to a polling station, and they prefer to vote by post. However, that is not actually what the provision is. Although some people might explicitly choose an all-elections postal vote, but not want a postal vote for referendums, such a situation is pretty unlikely, which is why our amendment states:"““An application under regulation 51(4)b of the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001, SI 2001/341, for an absent vote must state whether it is made for parliamentary elections, local government elections, referendums or all of them.””" People should be able to sign up to all of them, otherwise they will encounter terrible complexity not just when they ask for a postal vote, but also on polling day. As we know, some people lose their postal vote, some cannot send it on time and others may leave it until fairly late because they are uncertain how to vote and end up bringing the postal vote to the polling station. If someone has a postal vote for one poll but not for another, there may be considerable complexity about precisely what they are allowed to do.