Clause 6 - Combination of polls
Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill
5:00 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 31, in clause 6, page 3, line 28, at end add
'except a General Election or a Parliamentary by-election'.
The clause deals with the ability to combine a referendum in a region with any other poll, again at the discretion of—perhaps I should say mere—Ministers. One understands the practical attractions of combining a referendum vote with another sort of poll, but there are democratic issues to be addressed if the Government are considering going down those lines. Once again, I focus the Minister's attention on the role of the Electoral Commission—a body which I believe that the Government set up to avoid charges of gerrymandering and partiality in decision taking.
The Minister will know that the commission is considering a request for clarification on the issue in relation to any future referendum on the euro from the no campaign, which is seeking to establish that it would be unacceptable to hold a referendum on the euro on the same day as a general election. I understand from the commission that the logic is fairly straightforward: a referendum on a yes/no question will typically be fought on a cross-party basis. Members on both sides of the conventional political divides hold different views on these issues. To combine such a poll with an election organised on conventional party political lines could distort the result of one or other of those polls.
I am sure that the Minister will correct me if he has different information, but I understand that the preliminary finding of the commission is that a referendum on the euro should not be held on the same day as a general election, for very good reasons. If that logic applies to a poll on the euro, does it not also apply to a poll on a question about the establishment of regional assemblies? That is a non-party question: Members of all political parties will hold each of the possible outcome views from that referendum. Having set up the Electoral Commission, it is critical that the Government heed its advice.
The amendment is a probing one. It was tabled to restrict the flexibility of Ministers to combine polls in a way that excludes combination with a general election or a parliamentary by-election. Of course, other polls—local government elections, for example—are held on a party political basis so it could be argued that, in order to be consistent, the amendment should
go further and exclude combination with any poll for elective office.
In tabling the amendment, I want to elicit whether the Government will commit themselves to be bound by the advice of the Electoral Commission. If the commission decides that it is inappropriate to combine a single-issue referendum with any other election, will the Government abide by it? If it determines that it would be inappropriate to combine with a general election, but not a local government election, Opposition Members would be happy to accept the view of the Electoral Commission as an independent and impartial expert body as long as the Government would be similarly bound by its independently expressed view.
Another important point takes us back to participation levels and thresholds, which we briefly debated this morning. Whatever one's view about the need for formal thresholds to give legitimacy to a poll, the level of participation will doubtless be the principal means of measuring the level of interest in the establishment of a regional assembly. It would be convenient for someone in favour of the establishment of regional assemblies to organise the poll in such a way and at such a time as to maximise the turnout. Combination with an election that is expected to have a higher level of turnout, such as a general election, might be attractive, but provide spurious legitimacy to the regional assembly poll.