Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I hope to establish a precedent by posing a direct question to the Minister. That would be a good idea, having sat through all these hours. An occasional question may elicit some response from the Minister which may help all of us. I have a question on this amendment because there is a big difference in principle between the amendment we are now discussing and those on which we spent a long time earlier on the number of constituencies. Why do I think there is a big difference in principle? In relation to the number of constituencies, we had a voice from the electorate, showing that it wished to reduce the figure from 650 to a lower one. We can argue until the cows come home—indeed, we did—whether it should be 650, 625, 620, and so on. But there was a big difference in that in the electoral manifestos there was a direct statement on that point. Now we come to a completely different amendment relating to the 5 per cent margin and the amendment on the possibility of rising above 5 per cent but not above 10 per cent. Here comes my direct question to the Minister. Do the Government consider that they are in any sense bound by the views of the electorate to stick with 5 per cent? I cannot see that anywhere. The Government can take 5 per cent as a marvellous figure which they would like to stick with and which they can try to defend. Is there a commitment to the electorate—not to the Government’s friends or anybody else—that I do not see? If there is no commitment, it means that the flexibility we have here is obviously greater than the flexibility we had on some movement below 650 constituencies.