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Mr. Hammond: On a point of order, Mr. Benton. I did not want to raise this at the beginning of the sitting because I did not want to interrupt my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon, who was in full flow. You were not here this morning, Mr. Benton, but the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Lawrie Quinn) suggested in an intervention that the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), had indicated during a visit to the north-east that a future Conservative Government would scrap any regional assemblies that had been set up on coming into office. I bit my tongue at that moment because I wanted to check my facts, but for the record I advise the Committee that in an interview with The Journal, which is published in Newcastle, my right hon. Friend confirmed that an incoming Tory Government would not scrap the regional assemblies set by Labour without holding a second referendum. That important point should be placed on the record in view of the contrary comments made earlier.
Lawrie Quinn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Benton. I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. He refers to an article in The Journal. I may be able to provide him with a transcript of the live interview so that we can see what was actually said. I prefer to reserve my judgment until we see that transcript.
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The Chairman: Order. That is hardly a point of order. I have no objection to hon. Members correcting statements, but there is a way of doing so.
The Chairman, being of the opinion that the principle of the clause and any matters arising thereon had been adequately discussed in the course of debate on the amendments proposed thereto, forthwith put the Question, pursuant to Standing Orders Nos. 68 and 89, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Question agreed to.
Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6
Combination of polls
5 pm
Mr. Hammond: 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
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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.
Mr. Kevan Jones (North Durham): I find it difficult to follow the logic whereby a higher turnout in a referendum somehow gives the poll a spurious legitimacy, particularly if the vote went against forming regional government. How can turnout affect the question put to the electorate?
Mr. Hammond: One of the issues that Ministers will have to judge—we have not yet heard a Minister being clear about it—is the level of interest. Let us reduce it to an absurd level and say that the Secretary of State decides to hold a referendum in south-east England on a not very good hair day and only one person votes in favour. I assume that the Secretary of State would not seek to establish a regional assembly on that basis—
Mr. David Borrow (South Ribble): It depends who it was.
Mr. Hammond: The hon. Gentleman brings us neatly back to our debate on the need for access to the courts. If he were a Government Whip, I would certainly not trust the outcome. It is, of course, an absurd example. I understand why Ministers do not want to bind themselves to any particular hurdle threshold level, but a certain level of turnout is essential to provide legitimacy to the process. When I pressed him earlier to be explicit, the Minister said that he did not know exactly what the level was. We shall doubtless return to the issue when we debate clause 1. If turnout level is to be viewed as a validator of the original ministerial decision to conduct a referendum—as, I believe, it must—we should not distort the turnout by holding the ballot simultaneously with another ballot that could typically be expected to achieve a much higher turnout. That would send a distorted message to the
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Minister and upset his finely tuned antennae when he makes his decision.
Mr. Davey: The hon. Gentleman's use of the word ''distortion'' seems very odd in that context. Surely it is up to the voter to decide whether they want to use the ballot paper for the referendum at the same time as using it for the other election. The choice is for the voter, which is where it should be, and not for a political party.
Mr. Hammond: That is fine in theory, but the hon. Gentleman knows very well that combining any ballot with, for example, a general election ballot will ensure that turnout is significantly higher. That could be misrepresented to indicate a high level of interest in a particular question. However, it would represent not a high level of interest, but simply the effect of human nature. If one has been presented with two ballot papers and has decided to fill one of them in, one will probably fill them both in; I should not have thought that that was a very contentious proposition.
Mr. Borrow: I am trying to follow the points made by the hon. Gentleman. I accept that there is an argument about the distortion that would be caused by having two elections because different issues would be being debated at the same time. However, I fail to see how getting 73 or 75 per cent. of the electorate to vote in a referendum would distort the result compared with getting 20 or 30 per cent. of the electorate to vote. I do not understand his point, which seems to be that if the turnout is higher, the result will be of less value to the Minister than if it were lower. Perhaps he can explain to my feeble mind exactly what he has got in his.
Mr. Hammond: I think that I will treat that as a slip of the tongue, Mr. Benton. The logical conclusion to the hon. Gentleman's argument is that we should have compulsory elections and 100 per cent. turnouts.
The Minister is required to make a decision on the level of interest. The Minister for Local Government and the Regions said this morning that if the turnout were very low—he was not prepared to specify how low ''very low'' might be—the Minister would have got it wrong and have been shown to have made a wrong call. If a referendum were called on the basis of a ministerial judgment that there was a substantial amount of interest, and the referendum were then conducted on the same day as a general election, it would be impossible to validate the Minister's decision.
Several hon. Members rose—
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