"Eight people wanted to just abstain, 11 wanted to have a reasoned amendment and abstain, and four wanted to vote against".
Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, has tabled a reasoned amendment to the energy bill, urging the scrapping of the entire legislation.
Burnham this week called for Labour to oppose the welfare bill if a reasoned amendment was defeated, even though the official party line is to abstain.
Burnham last week disclosed that he had told the shadow cabinet it should table a reasoned amendment and, if that was defeated, then oppose the bill at second reading.
A group of 19 backbench Labour MPs, led by Heidi Alexander, have tabled what is known as a reasoned amendment to the bill, which if passed would see it thrown out at its second reading in the Commons.
The reasoned amendment was an escape route backed by most of the mainstream candidates who stood in the first leadership contest, and they were duly taunted by Corbyn who had voted against the bill.
The shadow cabinet agreed yesterday that it still supported the referendum the Alternative Vote (AV) system – but, in a new reasoned amendment, will say it is entirely wrong that this reform, on Conservative insistence, is being bound up with plans to reduce the number of MPs and introduce widespread boundary changes.
Burnham's line is that he got the shadow cabinet to change its position and it was that which succeeded in getting a "reasoned amendment" on it.
The other leadership candidates heeded Harman's call to back the Opposition's "reasoned amendment" to the legislation - which was defeated - and then abstained on whether it should progress to the next Commons stage.
The party might have tabled a "reasoned amendment", perhaps refusing a second reading until a white paper was published (not unreasonable, and what the SNP in fact did do, backed by 33 Labour MPs).
