On 28 October 2008, Official Report, column 720, in answer to an oral supplementary question from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) about voting systems I said that

“My hon. Friend will remember that the closed list system was a manifesto commitment in 1997”.

This was incorrect. The 1997 Labour party manifesto commitment was for the introduction of proportional representation for European elections, and did not detail that a closed list system should be used. It was agreed subsequent to the 1997 election that a closed list system should be used.