Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I will attempt to be reasonably concise. It is worth returning to the amendments, which are about the combination of polls, and reminding ourselves—and the literally dozens of people who I am sure are still watching on the BBC Parliament channel, after our deliberations so far—why we are discussing combining the referendum in the Bill with the Welsh Assembly, Northern Ireland Assembly, Scottish Parliament and local government elections. The only reason why we are doing that is down to one man, who has been completely invisible during our deliberations, namely the Deputy Prime Minister. The only reason why we are discussing this issue is that the Deputy Prime Minister is convinced that his best chance of winning the referendum on the introduction of the alternative vote will be if it takes place on the same day as the elections to the devolved Assemblies and the local government elections. As the amendments in the group show, this is not a matter of finance, although that argument is sometimes put forward. It is nothing to do with that; rather, it is entirely to do with a belief that the alternative vote is more likely to be supported in a referendum if it is held on the same day as those other elections. In that sense, this is one of the most surreal debates in which I have ever participated in the House of Commons, because the Deputy Prime Minister will not come here himself to make that point. Instead he sends along the Parliamentary Secretary, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who comes along to make the case, even though he does not himself believe that the alternative vote should be passed into law. In fact, this is the second time in one day that he has had to come forward to promote Liberal Democrat policy in the House. After the duffing up that he got in the Tea Room after the first time, I hope that he is a bit safer now.