European Parliamentary Elections Bill — 2 Dec 1998

Order for Second Reading read.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

When I moved the guillotine motion earlier, I said that there was little new to be said about the Bill. As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) more eloquently put it, the time for debate is over and the time has come to make a decision. That is the truth of the matter. I have here copies of the Official Report of the debates in the other place and this House on this short--albeit important--Bill. The debates fill many columns. Indeed, we have debated the matter on six or more occasions. We had not only a full day on Second Reading, as we should have done, but three days in Committee on the Floor of the House and a further day on Report and Third Reading.

The hon. Gentleman spent the whole debate voting for the closed-list system.

The Home Secretary made his statement on the compatibility of the Bill with the convention not by answering a question in the House or in the Votes and Proceedings of the House; presumably he simply signed a piece of paper in the Home Office to that effect.

It being four hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Bill, Mr. Deputy Speaker put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to the Order [this day].

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:--

The House divided: Ayes 315, Noes 123.

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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 are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (Aye)Minority (No)BothTurnout
Con0 121 (+2 tell)075.9%
Independent Labour1 00100.0%
Lab282 (+2 tell) 0068.1%
LDem26 0056.5%
PC4 00100.0%
SNP2 0033.3%
UUP0 2020.0%
Total:315 123068.4%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

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