Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I make no apology for speaking briefly from these Benches. I do not believe that it is proper to criticise the detailed approach to this question of many Members of this House. If we did not give the matter our deepest thought and most conscientious consideration, we would have no right to call ourselves a reviewing Chamber. I follow very much the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Desai, in regarding the amendment as a breath of fresh air, sanity and common sense. I suppose that every Member of this Chamber would accept the proposition that the mother of Parliaments, when considering a totally new regime relating to so many aspects of its life, deserves the best and most assiduous efforts that we can imagine. In other words, we should not approach any one of these problems in a piecemeal way. Nor should we think of a final solution to any of these matters. These are immense problems and we should not think in terms of any ultimate solution save after carrying out the most detailed and assiduous scrutiny of all possibilities that are open.