Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, we have now been going from 3.15 pm, when we started the debate on going into Committee. It is now three minutes to nine the next morning. We have been going, by my calculations, for 17 hours approximately, which is not congenial to good scrutiny of the Bill. It is also worth drawing attention to the Code of Conduct, which says: "““Membership of the House is not an office, and does not constitute employment; most Members' primary employment is or has been outside Parliament. In discharging their parliamentary duties Members of the House of Lords draw substantially on experience and expertise gained outside Parliament””." Very many Members of this House, including me, make their arrangements on the basis that we do not sit in the mornings. There are exceptions, but there is absolutely no reason why, with no discussion through the usual channels, we should now lose this day. Just as important as that and the point that it is not congenial to scrutiny is the point that we need to show a bit of leadership in this House and reach an agreement. Two conflicting views are being expressed. One is that the Government insist on having their Bill in full whenever they want it, in effect. We are saying that yes, they can have their referendum, but there should be proper scrutiny of Part 2 of the Bill. That must be capable of agreement, and there should be negotiations about it. For all three reasons, I move that the House do now resume.