Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I have not participated in this to date, but we seem to have combined two amendments at this point and I wanted to rise to make a contribution. I tend to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Desai, that there is not an automatic link between the numbers in one House and another, but there is certainly a link between the powers of the primary Chamber and the powers of this House. I thank my noble friend Lord Knight for tabling his amendment, and similarly my noble friend Lord Grocott for drawing to our attention the fascinating conundrum of the proposal to reduce the numbers in the other place while at the same time increasing to an extraordinary amount the numbers in this House. My noble friend Lady Smith said that she did not know how they had arrived at the figure. We have had the explanation—we might not like it and it might not necessarily be logical, but we have been told that it will save money. I am not going to comment on that approach from a Government who have made their attitude clear on the importance of cutting the deficit and that any amount is important. Someone else has said that 600 is a nice round figure, and it is hard to argue with that, too. Others allege that it will create a political advantage, although I could not possibly comment on that. But those are the arguments that we have heard to date. I have one thing to say to the coalition. To paraphrase, if you reform in haste, you may well repent at leisure. One thing that my noble friends have drawn to noble Lords’ attention again and again is the way in which this House has changed with the coalition Government. The atmosphere has changed. The Government have the power—there is no arguing with that. They have the Divisions and the numbers. My noble friend Lord McAvoy used the phrase that the chemistry had changed, which made it clear that he was a science graduate. He is right. It has changed. An interesting and important comment was made by the noble Lord, Lord Low, who has many wise words that are always worth listening to. He said that the coalition should think carefully about the ability to reach an agreement. As my noble friend Lord Davies said, the power to reach an agreement on this contentious Bill is within the hands of the Government. There have been a couple of not so much accusations as suggestions about whether the fact that there has been a forensic analysis of this Bill, which has gone on for a considerable time, is, in effect, filibustering. I could not help reflecting on the fact that I had the exquisite pleasure of taking through the Digital Economy Bill, which was a modest little number. It had 43 clauses and attracted 700 amendments. I do not think that I ever used the word filibustering, although on many occasions I watched as we debated the same issue again and again and again and again.