Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I rise relatively briefly, certainly by the standard of some of the proceedings that have taken place. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, would agree that his 640 was an absolutely precise figure based on a detailed application of science, but I think that we can take it as quite a useful thing. It is interesting to consider quite a small reduction instead of the largish ones that have been under consideration—to 600 or, as in the Conservative manifesto, I believe, beyond that. The arguments are rather different from the arguments for a large reduction. I do not think, on the whole, that a small reduction is very desirable except in the circumstances that I shall come to in a minute. However, thinking about it does enable us to realise the virtues of an amendment that the House considered earlier and to which we will, I am sure, return on Report. Amendment 60, to which I am particularly wedded because it is in my name, proposes a Speaker’s Conference to consider these things. I do not think that a Speaker’s Conference would generally be very likely to think that 640 is the right answer. However, there is one circumstance that a Speaker’s Conference might want to consider—I do not say what conclusion it would reach—and it is something that has not come up in this debates. A number of Members are present from my own country of Wales. In Wales there is to be a referendum in March about increasing the powers of the Welsh Assembly. I am not an expert on the matter, and I do not know if such increases in powers would make it considerably more comparable with the Scottish Parliament, or rather more, or not make an enormous difference.