HC 804 Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Dear Eleanor,

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

At our appearance in front of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee yesterday we said that we would be issuing a briefing to MPs today in advance of their consideration of Lords amendments to the PVSC Bill on Tuesday. After discussing this with colleagues, we do not now plan to do this until the Bill has completed its Third Reading in the Lords (scheduled for Monday) as the Bill may still be amended. In the meantime, I thought it might be helpful if I wrote setting out our views on the new provision for a threshold for the proposed referendum on the voting system for UK Parliamentary elections.

The amended clause, as tabled by Lord Rooker, stated that "If less than 40% of the electorate vote in the referendum, the result shall not be binding." The question of whether the proposed referendum should be subject to any minimum turnout threshold is clearly for Parliament to decide. As you know, neither I as the Chief Counting Officer, nor the Commission, have expressed any view on the merits of any such amendments, and do not consider it appropriate to do so.

In order for me to provide Parliament with the information it would need to be able to consider whether this threshold had been reached, however, it would be essential to provide further definition of the two key elements of the amendment. First, the Bill would need to define precisely what constitutes the ‘electorate’ for the purpose of the calculation: should it include amendments made to the electoral register up to and including polling day to correct clerical errors? It would also need to place Counting Officers under an explicit duty to provide official electorate data to me as Chief Counting Officer. Second, it would also need to define precisely how the ‘vote’ in the amended clause should be calculated: should it be based only on valid votes, or on the total number of ballot papers included in the count for the referendum?

I have written to the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform setting out these relatively detailed technical points, and have been assured that his officials are considering the implications of the amended clause. I’m sure you will agree, however, that it will be essential to ensure that there is clarity about this key clause before the Bill becomes law.

We also said that we would come back to the Committee on a range of other issues, including figures for how many people are registered to have proxy votes and how many people are registered in more than one area, and I hope to be in a position to do this in the early part of next week.

In the meantime, if you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Jenny Watson

Chair

Approved by the Chair and electronically signed in her absence