Queen's recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of sums required by the Electoral Commission to meet-

(a) the charges payable to counting officers in connection with a referendum held on the voting system for parliamentary elections; and

(b) sums payable in respect of increases in superannuation contributions required to be paid by local authorities in consequence of fees paid as part of those charges.- (Kerry McCarthy.)

I rise to oppose this money resolution on several grounds. First, it meets no perceived need. It has no justification, and it would also involve a wanton waste of public money. It is an election gimmick thought up by a discredited Prime Minister hoping to extend his days in office by some shady deal with the Liberal Democrats-and he should remember that although he can hire a Liberal Democrat, he cannot rely upon him.

In addressing the money resolution, the House should consider the following facts. The Prime Minister has now been in office, either as Prime Minister or Chancellor, for 12 years, and at no time has he shown the slightest interest in electoral reform. Indeed, the Ashdown diaries, which my right hon. Friend Mr. Cameron mentioned a few weeks ago, make it absolutely plain that the Prime Minister opposed the deal on electoral reform when Tony Blair and Lord Ashdown discussed that, so what we are dealing with here is an act of pure political cynicism. The Prime Minister refused to fund a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, although he had promised that, but he now wants us to fund a referendum on a change that he has always opposed.

This money resolution also illustrates the profligacy of the Prime Minister. He wants us to spend public money on something we do not want, even though that money is not readily available, thus ratcheting up debt and taxation, and his sole motive is personal ambition cloaked in the language of moral purpose. This House has heard too much about the moral compass to be readily deceived.

We should also consider the intellectual dishonesty involved. We are being asked to spend public money on the alternative vote, but there are many other ways of electing a Parliament, of course. Some of them appear on the Amendment paper. The Liberal Democrats favour the single transferable vote, as spelled out in amendment (b) to new Clause 88. Mr. Field favours the "two-round runoff system" in amendment (j) to that new clause, while Mark Lazarowicz refers to the top-up system in amendments (m) and (p). In common, I suspect, with most Conservative Members, I prefer first past the post, but the Prime Minister, without proper consultation-indeed, without any consultation at all-wants to spend public money to promote not a broad debate on the merits of electoral reform, but a narrow proposal, which in the dark watches of the night, if not the dark watches of his soul, he thinks might favour his electoral prospects.

I am sure my right hon. and learned Friend has thought about this himself in the dark watches of the night, but am I not right in saying that AV has been chosen because it is the only system that, had it been in force in the last election, would have produced an even more unfair-if that is the right word-result than the system we have?

Yes, indeed. It has the curious property of producing not the most popular representative, but the least popular. That is its curious characteristic. The House should note, too, how the question will be framed-not after full debate in this House on an amendable motion, where all the options can be canvassed and included, but through an unamendable order, almost certainly debated in quick time and subject to intensive whipping. That is what this money resolution seeks to propose. Thus the Prime Minister proposes to dispose of a system of election that has carried this country through war and tribulations.

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. May I inform him, as joint chairman together with Mr. Donohoe of the all-party group on first past the post, that the largest contingent of that all-party group is made up of Labour Scottish MPs who have seen at first hand the chaos and mayhem that this system has brought to elections north of the border?

Had those Members the courage of their convictions, they would be voting against it today.

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman at least acknowledge that the alternative vote system is not the system used north of the border, as his hon. Friend Daniel Kawczynski mistakenly told the House?

My hon. Friend Daniel Kawczynski will doubtless seek to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am not going to fall into an argument about this, but what is certainly true is that most of the Scottish Members-and indeed, I gather, at least 40 other Labour MPs-would prefer not to see the Prime Minister's venture being carried through.

I want to conclude with the following observation. The Prime Minister wants to spend public money on a venture for which there is neither justification nor public demand. It is true that politicians, politics and Parliament have sunk low in public esteem-I recognise that fact-but a change in the voting system, funded by the money resolution before us, will not address that. I believe that the principal reason that we are so disliked is that the public have come to realise what most of us know: namely, that we are not doing the job that we ought to be doing. We are failing to hold the Executive to account. We are failing to scrutinise legislation in the way in which it ought to be scrutinised. We have allowed the powers of this House to be usurped by Government and we have created the elected dictatorship.

Would it not be possible for Members of this House to take back that power from the Whips? It is the Whips, with their wily ways, who stop us. Surely it would be better-the debate resonates back to the Chartists-to have a referendum on allowing a fifth of us to retire every year and on having yearly elections to this Parliament. In that way, we would be closer to the people, not necessarily-

Order. Before Mr. Hogg responds to that Intervention, may I remind him and the House that we are debating quite a narrowly drawn money resolution at the moment? There will be ample opportunity to consider the other merits of the matters when we move into Committee.

I was rather minded of that before you intervened, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Let me make this response, if I might, to Mr. Pelling. I have always and often criticised the Whips in this place-that is true-but I do not believe that they are the fundamental problem. I believe that the cowardice of Members is the ultimate problem. I do not believe that we will solve this issue unless we have true separation of powers, but I recognise that that is extraordinarily difficult to achieve.

Let me revert to the subject of the money resolution. The issue is profound, but it will not be solved by the alternative vote. The money resolution will simply deepen public disdain. It will be seen as a misuse of public money by a Prime Minister who has become arrogant in office, undemocratic by habit and craven by instinct. This House can deny him the money this afternoon, and we should do so.

I follow my right hon. and learned Friend Mr. Hogg with great pleasure. This morning, after I had struggled into the House through the tumbleweed on the floor, the gales blowing through and the emptiness of our proceedings, I noticed that a money resolution was, unusually, tabled for debate before the business that we are to discuss. Given that it was not, as my right hon. and learned Friend has rightly pointed out, on the Lisbon treaty or anything like that, I read what it was about. I note that it shows the fatuity of the Bill, which produces babies every time we do anything on it. We are debating money resolution No. 3; each such resolution charts a special little sub-Bill that is stuck into the midst of it. So, as we continue our proceedings on the Bill, we are now tacking on another Bill-as that is what it is. The money resolution represents what should be a separate Bill in its own right. As my right hon. and learned Friend has indicated, if it were a Bill, we would be able to explore all the arguments on this issue.

I know that the Prime Minister has abolished boom and bust, and I now know that he wants to reform our voting system, but let me make an observation. The first-past-the-post voting system goes back to before time almost. It was the way by which, in ancient societies, in a one-vote system, the individual who had the most votes came first. It was the most simple rubric for determining who should be elected. That is how things were, but there has been a reversion. I am told that the Liberal Democrats support the money resolution and the purposes behind it. They have forgotten the advice of Lord Jenkins in his commission's report. The system that we are debating cannot be said to be an equal or proportionate system any more than the first-past-the-post system can. It therefore means that the least-objectionable candidate is elected. I note that the Jenkins report talked about seeking not consent but acquiescence. There is no sense of consent regarding the motion, certainly on the Conservative side, and the best that the Government can seek is acquiescence to it. I do not acquiesce to the money resolution; I note simply that it is a distraction.

I am sorry that I did not hear the beginning of the hon. Gentleman's speech, but the money resolution is important only if we think that the Bill is going anywhere, is it not?

That is the point that I want to emphasise. If we defeat the money resolution, we will not have dealt with the rest of the debate, but there will be no money to fulfil the expectations that come from it. That is why I urge the House to reject the motion. If it genuinely believes that there is merit in the resolution, there should be a full and proper Bill that will enable us to debate the views of the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives and other varied views across the House. No costing is associated with this matter. In a time of economic crisis, the resolution is a wild distraction that emphasises the futility of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, with all its add-ons.

I believe that the hon. Gentleman has won a seat in this place in seven general elections. In how many of those elections did he achieve 50 per cent. or more of the vote? I know that he did not in the last election. Would it not be nice for him to know that he had at least the conditional support of more than 50 per cent. of those who turned out?

Order. I am sorry to intervene again, but we are talking simply about the expenses involved in this matter, not the details of the matter itself, which must wait until we are in Committee.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should have liked to reply "five" to that question, but that would not be appropriate, as you have noted.

I was talking about expenditure, about the lack of estimates and about the distraction from substantial matters that this matter entails. For those reasons, I oppose the money resolution. I believe that in the dying days of this dying Parliament we should show some resolution along the lines that I have described. This House itself is dying. Parliament's purpose is to hold Governments to account on the expenditure of money. That is essential, as are the processes by which we look at that expenditure and the balance of the arguments that are put, yet today we have only 45 minutes for debate-and on most money resolutions we do not even get that.

So I urge the House to reject with a cheer the nonsense that is this motion and this Bill. The sooner that we tell the Government that there is no business worth considering, the better. The people must determine the fate of every one of us here. We must give up absurd gestures such as this referendum proposal, which has been dreamed up and put on the Order Paper inside a week. The Government tell us that it is a serious constitutional measure that must be debated, even though there is no possibility of an outcome.

You were correct, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to point out to the House that we are discussing a money resolution now, not the content of the amendments and new clauses coming up later in Committee. Many may say that the referendum proposal is merely a gimmick on the Prime Minister's part, but that is no of consequence in this debate.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will give way later. The Government have been in power for 12 years and done nothing about electoral reform. A few weeks before a General Election, they find that they have been converted but, again, that is not a matter for this debate on the money resolution-and neither is the fact that they are so irresolute that they cannot bring themselves to agree even with the proposal that they say that they want to put before the British people in a referendum.

As has been pointed out, the system that would be the subject of the question in such a referendum is not a proportional one. Mr. Shepherd was right to commend the single transferable vote as a proportional system, and we welcome his views. We hope that he will join us when we discuss the Amendment that would enable that system to be the question to be put before the people in a referendum.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I said that I would give way to Mr. Hogg.

The plain truth is that, if this is the useless gimmick that the hon. Gentleman says that it is, we should not be paying for it.

But ideas are not responsible for their authors. It may well be that, in the mind of the Prime Minister, this is a gimmick, but my point is that it may also be an idea worth putting before the British people.

The key is that we must debate this Bill and amend it to ensure that a proper referendum is held at the proper time. That referendum must give the British people a proper choice about whether to maintain the present discredited system for electing Members to this House-this neanderthal system that is older than time itself. Conservative party members consider the present system to be out of date and do not use it to elect their leader, yet they believe it to be right for the election of Members to this House.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, as I am about to finish. The British people should be given a choice between the present system and a proper proportional system, and that is the question that should be put to them in a referendum. This Bill, if it becomes an Act, would enable such a referendum to take place, but people with a vested interest in maintaining the present rotten system say that they will obstruct it by preventing agreement to the money that it needs. I think ill of them for that.

I believe that we should trust the British people-and not the opinions of those who benefit from the present unfair system. I now give way to Mr. Grieve.

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He knows that there is no prospect of the Amendment that he has tabled being carried by this House. I think that the gimmick that we are discussing would require expenditure of about £80 million of public money, at a time of financial constraint. He does not approve of the scheme, so does he think that all that money should be spent on it?

I shall not prejudge the debate that we are about to have, but the hon. and learned Gentleman obviously feels that we should. He feels that, from his position, he knows the outcome, and he is not prepared to back the British people's judgment on the electoral system. I am prepared to trust the people; I am prepared to go along with that concept; and that is why I shall support the money resolution.

Earlier today we had a discussion about out-of-hours GP provision. In my Constituency and the whole of Suffolk, including your constituency, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we do not have enough money for more than three doctors to provide an out-of-hours service. We have no money for a whole series of important things; the leaders of both major political parties admit that we have to cut the crucial things that service our constituents; and the Government have proposed that we spend £80 million or thereabouts-they have not worked out how much-on a question that very few people in this House think suitable.

This debate is about the money resolution, but the previous contribution was a revealing statement of Liberal party economics. It showed that the Liberal party does not believe that one discusses the money in any connection with the purpose for which it might be used. As for "ideas are not responsible for their authors," that is about as elliptical and confused a concept as the average Liberal Democrat party political broadcast; it is, indeed, typical Liberal confusion. There is nothing more confused than the Liberal Democrat party except the proposition that the Government have put before the House.

The money resolution is, frankly, a scandal. My constituents do not have the wherewithal to keep our current systems going, because the Government have taken money from the national health service and local government and spread it elsewhere in order to distribute it to their heartlands. It is therefore a scandal to talk to my constituents about £80 million, and they will not forget it at the election. More importantly, the neighbouring constituencies, which are very marginal, will certainly not forget it. They will return to this House people more willing to care for the public finances.

The reason why we are here is to defend the freedom of the people and to protect the taxpayer. The original purpose of this House was to ensure that the Executive did not spend money unwisely; did not spend money without due concern; did not spend money without exact accounting; and did not spend money in a way that the public felt unnecessary. That is why we are here.

On this occasion, we are invited to spend money where there is no count; invited to spend money on something that the public has shown no concern for; and invited to spend money on asking a question that is not connected with the argument and not supported by anybody on any side of the argument except the Prime Minister, who has worked out-although I suspect that it was worked out for him-that this is the one change that would make the current system worse mathematically. We are invited to do so also before we have discussed the matter, and that is wholly contrary to the way in which the money resolution is normally placed.

indicated dissent.

In the old days, which the right hon. Gentleman might remember, we discussed the issue first and then we came to the money resolution, because we had decided that the issue was one on which it was worth spending the money. In this case, we are discussing the money resolution first, because we know perfectly well that if the Government actually faced the issue, they would find it very difficult to get even their own supporters behind them.

We know the reason why; it was to prevent the House from wasting 40 minutes after 10 o'clock, as the Government then saw it. So they changed the procedures of the House yet again.

That reminds us why this is such an outrage and such a scandal. The reason why the House is not keeping the Government under control is that the Government took advantage of a point at which large numbers of hon. Members were new to say that they were modernising the system in the House, when in fact they were taking powers away from the House and depositing them in their own pocket. That is what they did.

The Government also did two other things. They introduced a system of guillotines, which is entirely foreign to this country and stops the proper debate and discussion of motions such as this. Secondly, they changed the system on money, so that we were gulled into a position in which the House was able to vote for money on subjects that it did not want for sums that it did not compute. For that reason, of all the issues that we have had before the House, this motion is more redolent of the smell at the heart of this Government-the disgracefully decaying Government who are before us-and the stench of a Prime Minister who puts his own future before that of this nation.

As I follow my right hon. Friend's splendid speech, I am tempted to remember the American politician who talked of an opponent being like "rotten mackerel by moonlight" that "stinks".

This stinks. The motion is a most appalling illustration, on the one hand, of the prodigality of the Prime Minister and, on the other, of the contempt in which the Government hold this House of Commons. Here we are in the dying days of a decaying Parliament, and what should we be doing to restore the reputation of this honourable House? We should be devoting such time as we have between now and going to the polls to discussing the great issues of the day.

Can this motion, by any stretch of the imagination, be construed as one of the great issues of the day? It is utterly irrelevant to our constituents' interests and, as my right hon. Friend Mr. Gummer has just illustrated, it proposes the expenditure of £80 million. There is not a Member of the House who could not get inestimable benefits for his or her constituents for a 10th of that.

I do not want to take long, because I want to direct my remarks entirely to the motion before us. The other thing is this. The motion not only illustrates the prodigality of the Prime Minister-with his busted reputation for financial acumen, which went down the drain a very long time ago-but shows that the Government have no place in their affections or regard for Parliament. They are thrashing around like a dying tyrant, seeking to use their Majority to take the public eye off the things that really matter and, perhaps, to save their skins in what they think might become a deal in the future-we remember the Lib-Lab pact, Mr. Deputy Speaker-with those who might come to their aid and succour.

If anything ought to make the people of this country realise that we are going through a shoddy, shabby exercise this afternoon, it is this debate. I very much hope that all my right hon. and hon. Friends will go into the Lobby, as I shall, to try to deny this useless expenditure-this prodigal waste of money-that would be a disgrace to the Government, if we allow them to get away with it.

When the Government came up with these proposals, they could not, when asked, provide costings on how much they would have to spend in order to allow this referendum to take place. Only bit by bit has the figure of £80 million gradually been extracted as the economic cost of carrying it out, and even that-I wait to hear from the Secretary of State in a few minutes-appears to be far from clear. That is £80 million for a gimmick that the Government wish to foist on the electorate, and at a time when they keep pointing out to us that savings are going to have to be made and that every pound matters.

I do not know where the £80 million is supposed to come from, but on my calculation it would pay for the prison places needed to scrap the early release scheme, which the Secretary of State says is so important to him; it would fund 15 rape crisis centres, if that is what he wants to do out of the justice budget; and it would enable him to drop the disgraceful policy of refusing to meet the legal costs of acquitted defendants who do not enjoy legal aid. All those things could be done, and I have to say to him that that would be money much better spent.

For those reasons, the House should have the courage to say that £80 million misspent is a travesty and a denial of our responsibility to the electorate, and it should reject this motion.

I have sat in this House for a very long time, and rarely have I heard such hyperbole and abuse in place of serious argument. Mr. Grieve said that information about the cost had to be extracted from us. That is not so: we have answered a whole series of parliamentary questions on this. The cost of a referendum is hardly a surprise. Given that it involves all the electors of the United Kingdom and similar provisions for Freepost and so on, it comes to about the same as the cost of a General Election, which is indeed about £80 million. Which Department will the money come from? It will come from the Consolidated Fund, as all electoral expenditure does. Of course it is £80 million, but it is £80 million as a single piece of expenditure in a single year. Why is there no direct parallel with, for example, the cost of providing additional prison places? Because, as the hon. Gentleman will discover if he ever ends up in the position of having to negotiate with the Treasury for a departmental budget, there is a world of difference between single, one-off expenditure and continuing expenditure that involves costs every year.

I have a lot of time for Mr. Gummer, but he has a bit of gall complaining about the amount of money that he claims is not available for the health service in his Constituency. The amount of money spent on health services in his constituency has more than doubled, if not trebled, in real terms since 1997. There will not be a health facility in his constituency, nor a school, that has not significantly improved.

I am looking forward to having the precise figures on that, because it certainly does not characterise what is happening in the health service in my Constituency. Indeed, my local health professionals are very clear that they cannot provide the service that they want to provide because they are among the lowest quintile in the country, whereas they used to be much higher when age was taken into account, which it no longer is in the same way.

I am very happy to ensure that the right hon. Gentleman is provided with that information.

Mr. Hogg said that in the course of the debates about whether we should have had a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, the argument that we used was one of money. Many arguments were used about why the Lisbon treaty did not require a referendum, but there was never, in my recollection, any suggestion whatsoever that cost was one of them. Indeed, it scarcely lies well in the mouths of Conservatives, who have repeatedly called for referendums on such issues, now to deny a referendum on a most central issue, namely how this country should vote.

rose-

rose-

I will not give way, because I only have a short time.

We have heard suggestions that the idea of the alternative vote is some great anathema, and that alternatives to first past the post have never been considered. We will come on to that in more detail in Committee, but that is an extraordinary suggestion. As Mr. Heath pointed out, the Conservative party elected Mr. Cameron as its leader not by first past the post but by the alternative vote. [Hon. Members: "Gimmick!"] Well, we know that. But it gets better-or worse, depending on one's point of view. It will be within the recollection of the House that just two weeks ago we had a great debate about whether we should end by-elections for hereditary peers. We voted for that, and so did the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives voted to support the system of electing hereditary peers. May I ask whether any Opposition right hon. or hon. Member knows what the system of elections for hereditary peers is?

rose-

Ah, come on!

Order. May I remind the House of what I said earlier? We should confine our remarks to the money involved in the measure before us, and we certainly should not go down the kind of avenue that the Secretary of State is in danger of straying down.

May I just point out a mathematical fact to the Secretary of State? The leader of the Conservative party was not elected by the alternative vote, because there were only two candidates.

That does not stop it being an alternative.

To revert to my point, no Opposition Member can tell me the system for the election of hereditary peers, which they defended. The answer is that it is the alternative vote. I have here the last result of an election of a Conservative peer, and-

Order. I am in danger of interrupting the Secretary of State too often, but I will continue to do so unless he comes back to the money resolution before the House.

I was seeking to make the case for why this expenditure represents value for money, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is £1.20 per elector in the country. It is not correct to say that the issue has not been the subject of great consideration over many decades, as I will point out in my speech on new Clause 88 in a moment. The truth is that a system of eliminating ballots is used by the Conservative party under its constitution, and it amounts to an extended form of the alternative vote. It is also used for the election of hereditary peers-a system that the Conservatives sought to defend less than two weeks ago. [Hon. Members: "You set it up!"] No, the House of Lords set up the system of elections, and the Conservatives have actively supported it. I have checked and checked again, and never once have the Conservatives at the other end of the corridor suggested that the first-past-the-post system should be used for the election of hereditary peers.

Will the Secretary of State answer our very simple question about the intellectual dishonesty that lies behind the proposals and about the fact that throwing all this money at this absurd proposal is no more than a cynical ploy to try to increase the Labour party's opportunity to get a bigger electoral result? Is that not really the point?

If it were a cynical ploy, which it is not- [Interruption.] I could understand that argument if we were seeking to introduce this change without any referendum of the British people. The hon. Gentleman is a leading proponent of referendums, and I have sat in this House time and again listening to him. On any basis, how we elect our Members of Parliament is a rather more important matter-or, in his view, an even more important matter-than whether we are subject to the Lisbon treaty.

What we are proposing-this is all that we are proposing-is to provide for the money so that there can be a referendum over the next 20 months, so that not this House, nor any so-called deal, but the British people, in the secrecy of the ballot booth, determine what system, between first past the post and the alternative vote, will apply. I cannot for the life of me see why the Conservatives do not have the courage of their convictions to be ready to argue in favour of first past the post-as many Labour Members may well do-before the British people in a properly established and regulated referendum.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes 357, Noes 180.

Question accordingly agreed to.