Downing Street Says » Alternative Vote

» Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Alternative Vote

Asked when there would be a referendum on AV, the PMS said that people were getting a bit ahead of themselves with regard to process; we would first have to publish a bill, which would then be introduced to Parliament. We would wait for that to happen before we set a timetable for a referendum.

Asked if it was the Government’s intention to include the boundary constituency changes in the same bill on electoral reform as AV, the PMS said that the expectation was that AV and boundary changes would be in the same bill. There could be further bills on other aspects of electoral reform, but the two issues highlighted would be addressed in the first bill.

Put that there was a considerable amount of work to be done on the boundaries issue, the PMS said that the detail was being worked through and the plan was to introduce the bill as quickly as possible.

Asked if boundary changes would be put to a referendum, the PMS said no.

Asked if there would be a referendum on AV once the boundary review had been concluded, the PMS said that people would have to wait for the relevant department to set out the details. As a general rule, the coalition agreement set out the Government’s position on various matters; the Queen’s Speech yesterday set out how we would implement policy, but as was normal, departments would do work on the details of the proposals and introduce legislation afterwards. It was not possible to give out any details before those things had happened.

Asked if the bill would be introduced this year or next year, the PMS said that the expectation was that the bill would be introduced later on this year.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.