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I simply don’t agree that it is wrong in principle to ask people to vote on wholly different issues on the same day
Nick Clegg
Nick Clegg has defended the plan to hold a vote on changing the voting system on the same day as elections to the devolved assemblies.
Appearing before the newly created Commons political and constitutional reform committee this morning, the deputy prime minister dismissed concerns that a vote on replacing first past the post with the Alternative Vote (AV) would overshadow devolved issues.
"I simply don’t agree that it is wrong in principle to ask people to vote on wholly different issues on the same day," he said.
"You can not micromanage who is going to choose to vote in different parts of the country."
"I really struggle to understand why the extensive and wide-ranging debates about the future of Scotland, about the government of Scotland, the politics of Holyrood would in any way be subsumed or overshadowed or overturned by a separate, very very clear, simple yes or no vote on how in future people vote for their MPs," he said.
"I am genuinely trying to work out what the allegation is. I speak to friends of mine who will be voting in Scotland and they say they see no complexity at all."
Clegg said he hoped the referendum would trigger a bigger debate that just between political parties and would not just be "conducted by politicians in the name of political parties".
"If it collapses into a political partisan campaign within the government or without it will be a huge missed opportunity," he warned.
"I hope it will be a much more open referendum campaign which will capture a wider spirit of; do we want to reform our politics?"
And he laughed off the idea that he wanted to follow up the poll on AV with further changes to the voting system. There was no "dastardly plan" to hold vote after vote until his preferred proportional representation system was adopted he insisted.
But Tory committee member Eleanor Laing warned that precisely by holding the referendum on the same day as politically charged elections to national parliaments.
"How can it not be politically partisan if it happens on the same day as elections which clearly are politically partisan?" she asked.
But Clegg said voters were capable of approaching different issues on the same day without partisan politics influencing the decision on each one.
"I think you and I disagree that people can not separate partisan reactions to one poll from another," he told Laing.
He added: "The vast majority of people don’t walk around with tattoo on their head saying I'm a Lib Dem."
Clegg also confirmed to Lib Dem MP Stephen Williams that the voting system on offer will be will be an "optional preferential AV system" in which voters rank candidates in order of preference, but are not obligated to do so as under the Australian version of AV.
And he also told MPs that he thought peers should be allowed to vote in any referendum on the voting system.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd