Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Would my noble and learned friend comment again briefly? There was an accusation in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, about whether or not the procedures of the House were being obeyed in respect of a decoupling of amendments. It is worth reminding the House—not that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, should need reminding because his party quite frequently decoupled groups of amendments in the many years that he was in Opposition—that that followed a clear breach of the conventions of the House in calling for a closure on the previous group of amendments. In fact our Standing Orders make clear that that was a most exceptional set of circumstances. It would not have been so bad if the proposal had come from the Opposition Back Benches—which it did—and the Front Bench had chosen not to follow it but, quite deliberately, the Front Bench encouraged the Motion and went through the Lobbies in order to ensure that it was carried. I will list the breaches to the conventions of this House in some detail. For now I will be brief. The clearest possible breach of the conventions of this House is, as my noble and learned friend has said, when there is absolutely no time imperative whatsoever for this and for the Government to have determined that we should be sitting at this time and, even more significantly, that we should be considering the Bill tomorrow and on Thursday. I have not kept count of the breaches in convention.