European Union Bill

My hon. Friend is right. We get into very dangerous territory as elected representatives when we start to say that only votes or elections in which the turnout was above a given percentage are valid. What is at issue is our intention to provide for the British electorate to have the final say on whether or not the Government of the day can agree to transfer competencies or powers from the United Kingdom to the European Union. The outcome of a referendum should, in our view, be determined by the will of those who vote and not by how many turn up to vote. As the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) said earlier this year when we debated a turnout threshold for the referendum on the alternative vote:"““If we agree to anything that passes for any sort of threshold, people in this country will have an incentive to say, 'If you don't know, don't vote'””.—[Official Report, 15 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 907.]" A turnout threshold seems to me to be a recipe for apathy. It would undermine one of the fundamental aims of the Bill, which is to reconnect the British people and better inform them of the decisions taken in their name at European Union level.