Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill — Political Party Spending During Referenda — 15 Dec 2010 at 17:41
The majority of members of the House of Lords voted against a step intended to work towards reducing the amount political parties can spend in referendum campaigns.
The House of Lords was considering the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill[1]. The amendment rejected in this vote was:
- Amendment 39AC: Page 4, line 3, after “15A” insert “and as if the Schedule set out in Schedule (Limits on referendum expenses by permitted participants) to this Act were inserted into that Act as Schedule 14A.”
This would have taken effect on clause 6(1) of the Bill which stated:
- (1) The 2000 Act has effect in relation to the referendum as if the Schedule set out in Schedule 9 to this Act were inserted in that Act as Schedule 15A.
The intended effect of treating the schedule on "limits on referendum expenses by permitted participants" as if it were within the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 was explained during the debate leading up to the vote as being to enable a subsequent amendment, number 126, which sought to reduce the amount that a registered political party can spend on a referendum campaign from £5 million to a maximum of £500,000.
Party Summary
Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.
What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.
What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.| Party | Majority (Not-Content) | Minority (Content) | Turnout |
| Con | 116 (+1 tell) | 0 | 58.5% |
| Crossbench | 16 | 20 | 19.1% |
| Independent Labour | 0 | 1 | 100.0% |
| Lab | 0 | 137 (+2 tell) | 57.9% |
| LDem | 59 (+1 tell) | 0 | 72.3% |
| Non-affiliated | 1 | 0 | 5.9% |
| UUP | 0 | 1 | 33.3% |
| Total: | 192 | 159 | 48.5% |
All lords Eligible to Vote - sorted by party
Includes lords who were absent (or abstained) from this vote.