The noble Lord had better ask the Minister; I do not have those figures, but I am happy to dig them out. The point I make still applies. As in London, I am sure there is scope for better systems to improve the design of the papers and reduce rejected numbers.
The last of the Government’s arguments is consistency. Those in favour of PR might argue that the way to achieve consistency would be to move all elections over to PR. You do not need to go that far; as I explained earlier, people are perfectly able to live with different electoral systems.
I think the real reason the Government have done this, as has already been alluded to, is the results of the elections themselves. Out of the 15 directly elected mayors, none represents the government party; out of the 10 metro mayors, including the Mayor of London, only two represent the government party. I can understand why the Government find that a disappointing result, but I do not think that is a good reason for taking forward a major constitutional change to an electoral system without meaningful consultation.
5.30 pm