Clause 3 - Pilot schemes under the 2000 Act
European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill
11:15 am
Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Shipley, Labour)
I am slightly perplexed by the Liberal Democrats' position. I thought that they did not want differential voting systems in a single country. One of the reasons for the clause is that, if certain pockets in a single constituency—a region, for European parliamentary purposes—have voting opportunities that are different from those in other neighbourhoods or districts, some people in one part of the constituency may be advantaged by being able to vote more easily than others. I am sure that they would take the opportunity to point that out. That is why we want any parliamentary constituency to have a consistent voting mechanism.