Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I am most grateful to my noble friend; that is extremely helpful. If there were a Speaker’s Conference, there would, first, be the question of the result. If the Welsh people turned down the increase of powers, there would be no reason from that to change the number of Welsh MPs. If they accepted the increase in powers, and the polls suggest that they will, there would be a case for looking at the number of Welsh seats. You would then want to say: should such a decrease in the number of seats be felt to be justified, should this decrease be comparable to the scale of the decrease that took place in Scotland or at the Welsh Assembly? It would still have fewer powers than the Scottish Parliament. Should that be rather less, or does it really not justify changing the number of Welsh seats at all? I do not know. There are circumstances in which a small change in the number of seats could be justified. Otherwise there would be rather a lot of disruption for not a lot of gain. That is a circumstance which would best be considered by a Speaker’s Conference.