Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I think that I have made it clear that I have not asked any of my colleagues not to speak. I am not quite sure that I could make it any clearer than that. With regard to the timetable, the indication we have given is that we wish the changes in Part 2 to be in effect for the election due to take place in May 2015. One could say that that is dependent on the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, but in any event, even under our present constitutional arrangements for the timing of elections, the latest date would be May 2015. It is the wish of the Government that constituency sizes should be of an equal size in time for that election. That is why we are asking the Boundary Commissions to bring forward their reports by October 2013. That would give time between the reports—one for each constituent nation of the United Kingdom—being published and an opportunity for the parties, the importance of which I think someone mentioned, to gear up, as it were, to what will be different boundaries. With regard to the issue that I think was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, about whether this is feasible, my noble friend Lord Phillips quoted from the Constitution Committee report where the Boundary Commission had indicated that it would be feasible. In giving evidence to the committee in another place, the secretary of the Boundary Commission for Wales said: "““I don’t think the timescales for Wales are going to be too challenging””." The question was then directed to the secretary of the Boundary Commission for England, which is obviously much larger. He said: "““Taking a potential worst case scenario, based upon what is in the Bill in front of us, the initial view of myself and the Commission is that the timetable is achievable””." The noble and learned Lord went on to ask why not do this in two and a half years every time, and why institute five-yearly reviews after that? The reason is that a five-yearly review would mean that there would be a boundary review in each Parliament. If he thinks about it, with a two and a half year or three-year review, you could have two reviews within one Parliament and a boundary review producing constituencies for an election that would not take place. I am sure he agrees that that would be farcical. That is the reason for the five-yearly review, and later we will debate other amendments regarding seven and eight year reviews. As was noted by the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, the second part of the amendment has a six-yearly review. We believe that a review every five years would mean that in each Parliament, if the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill goes through, there is less likely to be disruption. The more frequent the reviews, the less the opportunity for wide divergence and therefore the less would be the likelihood of disruption.