On Wednesday 20th May I asked the Prime Minister to give the voters a chance to decide how to resolve the crisis in our political system.  I urged him to hold a referendum in May 2010 on the establishment of a Citizens’ Convention, which would come back to the voters within two years with a package of measures on party funding, House of Lords reform and voting reform.  The Prime Minister promised to come forward with new proposals in the next few weeks.   

This is what I asked the Prime Minister: “In view of his comments on political reform, does the Prime Minister not think it is time to redeem an undertaking we gave in our 1997 manifesto by calling a referendum on the day of next year’s local elections on the establishment of a Citizens’ Convention to come back to the voters within two years with proposals to complete the reform of party funding, to elect the House of Lords and to make every vote make a difference by allowing voters to choose the candidate, the party and the government they want?”

I’ve always been a passionate advocate of modernising the House of Commons, reforming allowances and changing the voting system. But as we have seen over the last fortnight, MPs are not very good at changing the system here at Westminster . That’s why I’m in favour of handing the power over to the voters through a referendum.

The Prime Minister recently announced the setting up of an independent authority to regulate MPs’ allowances and the end of the “gentlemen’s club” system of self-regulation.  We should go further and hand over the power to decide how we are elected to Westminster to the voters.  After all, it’s not for us to decide how we are elected.