PLANS TO hold a May referendum on voting reform, which must get parliamentary approval this week, hang on a knife edge because of continuing disagreements between the Conservative/ Liberal Democrat coalition and Labour.
Last night MPs in the House of Commons were facing the prospect of an all-night debate on the legislation, which proposes the introduction of the alternative vote system, a reduction in the number of MPs and the creation of more constituencies of equal size.
During a marathon debate in the House of Lords, the government failed to block a number of amendments put down by Labour, including a demand that the referendum result would not be valid unless there was a 40 per cent voter turnout.
In addition, a majority in the Lords insisted that constituencies be allowed to vary in size by 7.5 per cent, rather than the 5 per cent proposed by the government, while the Isle of Wight should be allowed to have two MPs, not one.
The legislation, which also proposes that the number of MPs be cut by 50, came back to the Commons yesterday. However, the government ordered its MPs to reject the peers’ demand for a turnout threshold and for greater variation in constituency size.
The legislation will now go over and back between the two houses until agreement is reached, but the House of Lords rises for its mid-term recess later today, and the Commons is supposed to break up tomorrow.
But the legislation must be given full parliamentary approval by tomorrow if the electoral commission is to have enough time to prepare for May 5th, so that the referendum can be held alongside Welsh and Scottish assembly elections and local elections in many parts of England.
Late last night, government whips insisted they would keep MPs in the chamber all night if necessary to see the legislation finished, while the mid-term break for the Commons and the Lords could be abandoned if further obstacles were put in its way. A delay could cripple plans for the AV referendum, which was one of the Lib Dem pledges ahead of entering coalition last May.
Campaigners against the referendum, who are expected to highlight the increasingly unpopular Nick Clegg’s support for it as one of their major weapons, launched their efforts to block it yesterday amid claims it would cost taxpayers £250 million.
The referendum, said the NO2AV campaign, would cost £82 million to hold, while up to £130 million would be needed for electronic vote counting because the system was so complicated given that it must cater for multiple distributions.
Under AV, lower candidates are eliminated and their second preferences are distributed until one candidate gets 50 per cent of the vote. The system is far less complicated than the proportional representation-single transferable vote system used in Ireland.
Describing the NO2AV figures as “a fantasy”, the Yes campaign – strongly backed by a number of celebrities, including actor Colin Firth – said AV has been used in Australia for a century.
