Clause 15 - Implementation of recommendations
Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill
10:30 am
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 76, in
clause 15, page 8, line 45, after '1', insert 'and at least twenty-five per cent. of persons eligible to vote at that referendum voted in favour of the establishment of an elected regional assembly for the region.'.
My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) is urging me that we should make substantial and rapid progress through our remaining business, so I shall attempt to be relatively brief. I am sure that Ministers will seek to do likewise when replying.
The amendment effectively introduces our old friend the hurdle—a threshold test—for any implementation of recommendations following a referendum in a region. In the Bill, the simple fact that a referendum has been held on proposals for an elected assembly is adequate grounds for the Secretary of State to go ahead and implement the boundary committee changes or, as may be the case following subsequent amendments, some variation of them.
The amendment would introduce a requirement that half the people eligible to vote would need to vote in the referendum, and at least half of them would
need to vote yes, before the Secretary of State could proceed. For a significant constitutional change, that does not seem unreasonable. Before the Minister for Local Government and the Regions leaps to his feet and rakes over old coals, I shall say that the amendment takes a different approach to the threshold than that of earlier amendments in my name. That serves to emphasise to any fair-minded members of the Committee that the Opposition, unlike the Government, are prepared to listen to criticism of their reasoning and arguments and, where it has merit, to reconsider.
I have therefore taken on board what the Minister said, which was that the introduction of a threshold for participation only would have the perverse consequence of making an abstention effectively a no vote. After considerable reflection on that with my right hon. and hon. Friends, we have concluded that that is not the right way to proceed and it is not the message that we would like to send. However, we think a threshold important for a major constitutional change.
The amendment attempts to express that threshold as 25 per cent. of persons eligible to vote voting yes. That does not require there to be a 50 per cent. turnout, although one would hope that the turnout would be high. A 26 per cent. turnout would be sufficient if nearly everyone voted yes, which is highly unlikely but theoretically possible.