Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I am sorry that the noble Earl thinks that. He is being a little too impatient, if I may say so. The point that I am making is that the relationship between the structures of local government and the system of parliamentary representation is very important. It needs to be intimate. Members of Parliament and elected members of local authorities need to work together. This system should be an organic whole, which is one more very important reason why the rules that the Government propose to govern the designing and drawing of the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies need to be sensitive to the realities of local government. I say no more than that, but these considerations genuinely matter. I welcome the Minister’s tone and hope that his department will examine the practical implications of not moving beyond the 5 per cent tolerance either side of the norm, and consider whether it would produce anomalies and offensive manifestations in the way in which our constituencies are drawn that we would be very much wiser to avoid.