Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, the hour is late and I will do my best not to repeat the points that I made in previous debates. I return briefly to the rush to judgment on this. The process and timetable do not give due consideration to a properly conducted exercise to get people to register. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, criticises the previous Labour Government with some justification—although I wonder when we will stop getting blamed for everything under the sun—for not doing extra registration. That is not entirely true or fair, because various exercises and pilot schemes were done. However, they could have been pursued better. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, is a logical person most of the time—except when he is shouting at people outside the Chamber. However, I do not see the logic or the ethics of saying, ““We have the power now, but because you did not do it, we are not going to do it either””. I am sure that he will contradict me if that is not his point. It is that point that particularly annoys me in this clause, as well as the obduracy of the Government in resisting normal amendments. Once again, I find the whole process skewed and abnormal because it is getting rushed and concertinaed into a certain time for the political convenience of the coalition parties. I would like to put one thing on record. Earlier, my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours indicated that he was moving an amendment that would help the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. That amendment would certainly not have got my support; I would have been in the other lobby like a shot. I do not go along with that at all. My noble friend Lord Soley talked about the constitutionality of the Bill. I am no expert, but I am interested in history and I see examples of electoral systems being manipulated and gerrymandered by political parties for their own purposes. This is a breakthrough in the United Kingdom, because we have a combination of political parties putting through a change that will affect the composition of the House of Commons and is designed to affect the political balance within the reformed House. As we all know, no matter how long it takes—it took 18 years to get rid of the Tories and it took the combined opposition 13 years to get rid of us—sooner or later the pendulum swings, Ministers make mistakes, Governments get tired and the electorate see it. Then the motor of change takes over and the change is effected by the British public. The example has been set, the new Government will tamper with the political system to their advantage and we will end up like some of the emerging African states, where all sorts of things happen. It is not just African states. I do not have much experience of the political system of the United States, but I am told that it is in the hands of the politicians. I genuinely think that it would be bad if that happened. I believe that this coalition Government, or collaboration Government, will regret the haste with which they have conducted the passage of this legislation. It is wrong in principle and I shall certainly be opposed to the tenets of this clause.