My Lords, I have been very concerned to understand how the conduct of the debate in the course of a referendum could be most useful. Noble Lords will recall that we debated parliamentary constituency boundaries at great length; it was argued that they work for parliamentary elections despite the fact that the homogeneity of almost any of the constituencies was significantly disrupted. Some of them were essentially very artificial; they were no longer built around any kind of core principle but were to meet a numerical target, which I did not agree with but I fully understood.
I make that point because, by and large, local authorities are not constructed that way. Some of the very large ones may be, but a very significant number are constructed around entities where you can see the degree of homogeneity of the economic system that applies in that part of the country. That seems to me to be very important, because I believe that one of the telling debates during any referendum would be on the balance of economic interests for us as a community. Do we see a future? Will our kids continue to want to live here? Will the economic community be capable of sustaining the sorts of schools and kinds of medical provision that we want? All those will be live issues. It is no accident that chambers of commerce and a great many other economic entities in all those communities are organised with that kind of boundary in mind. That is where many of these most telling debates will take place—they will not take place on the grounds of constituencies.
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I realise that this is about voting, but the voting will be at the end of a process of debate, and if we can help to formulate a mechanism in which that debate is likely to be most relevant and successful, that seems to me of very considerable benefit in the whole process that could lead up to the referendum. Could the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, reflect on that? I take the point that this is about making arrangements so that people get a chance to express a view on the future of the United Kingdom in the EU. I would like to believe that he thinks, and I feel sure that he will, that it is important to know that the quality of the debate will be as fundamental before that decision is taken as the decision itself—otherwise it will probably be a decision repented of at leisure.