Part of Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill – in the House of Lords at 6:00 pm on 15 December 2010.
I support what the noble Lord has said. A leaflet describing the pros and cons of different electoral systems cannot be factual, as there are values and opinions. The assertion that one voting system means that people will have more than 50 per cent of the electorate's support is open to argument. Of course you can go into a certain amount of detail about whether a fourth preference is as valuable as a first preference, but the argument is even more complicated than that. Surely the Government ought to consider the possibility that there should be no leaflet of any kind from the Electoral Commission. The Electoral Commission has chosen two designated organisations, both of which will receive public funds. Why not leave it at that? Why do you have to have somebody listing the pros and cons in a way that will inevitably be attacked from both sides?