Mr. John McCallister:

There are various reasons. Some are nervous about any changes that look like we are moving back to that or any changes at all. To be fair to the parties and with the engagement we had during Committee Stage, it has been very straight and honest, as people are looking very genuinely at the implications of the Bill. They are hearing from academics, with some people being very supportive of changes. Others are less so. That is the value of the process of going through a Committee Stage. From that perspective, the Bill has stimulated much talk about what an opposition would look like and what a collective government might look like. For too long, the word "opposition" was bandied about but nobody had put flesh on the bones of what it would look like or how this would fit in with the consociational style of government. There is the question of marrying those two, as we are more used to a Westminster model. It would be better to look at the example here, Wales or Scotland. The electoral system here is the same as ours. There will never be a stand-off with two big parties because proportional representation and the single transferable vote does not give that. If the UK election had seen the use of proportional representation, there would have been approximately 80 UK Independence Party MPs, 50 Liberal Democrats and a coalition government all the time. I forget but I think 1977 was the last time we saw a majority here. It was quite a while ago.