Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I make just two brief points, which arise from the debate so far. The first follows what my noble friend described as the dogs that did not bark. I ask Members of this House to imagine a Labour Government proposing an arbitrary number in the House of Commons, without any consultation or a Green Paper, and without any hearing arrangements whatever. What squeals we would hear from the Liberal Democrat Benches. We would have heard lectures from the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, about how it breached human rights. We would have heard squeals of high dudgeon and moral outrage from the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Rennard, about its being disgraceful and undemocratic. What have we heard in this debate of now two hours and 16 minutes? There have been three interventions from the opposite side, which is not prepared to engage in the argument. I understood that the House of Lords gave us an opportunity to revise legislation—to debate it, which means to look at both sides of the argument. The situation now appears to be that the coalition is prepared just to sit there on its Benches, waiting for the debate to finish and prepared to use a built-in majority to push the Bill through without any debate. That is a negation of democracy. I do not understand how Liberal Democrats who sat through the Labour Government, attacking and criticising us for such things, can sit there and accept it. My noble friend Lord Grocott will recall that in the Labour Government there were certainly people on the Back Benches of the Labour Party arguing the case, questioning, challenging and making sure that the issues were properly discussed. It is quite astonishing that, apart from Labour Members and two distinguished, excellent contributions from the Cross Benches, no one has entered this debate. My second and last point is for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, who will reply to this debate and who I know very well and have great respect for. I hope he will reply properly to the debate and deal with the issues that have been raised. I want him to deal specifically with this one. The Scottish Constitutional Convention preceded the setting up of the Scottish Parliament. It involved all the parties, civil society in Scotland, the universities, the trade unions and everyone in Scotland. It discussed what the powers of the Scottish Parliament should be, what should be devolved, how many Members there should be and what the electoral system should be. Before legislation was introduced, the Labour Government allowed that debate to take place. If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, will not agree to this for a major constitutional change to the House of Commons, he needs to search his conscience very strongly. Those are the only points that I want to make.