Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I would not like your Lordships to think that I have not been sufficiently assiduous in my preparation to deliver a long speech this afternoon. Who knows, it might have been different if it had been delivered in the middle of last night. However, I think that almost everything that needs and ought to be said on this subject has been said in the debate we have just had. I want to make only two brief points. I listened with great attention to the admirable response of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace. We ought to be aware that at the moment the discrepancy in constituency size is absolutely enormous. It is not 5 per cent on each side, and not 10 per cent. The smallest seat is 31.7 per cent of the average seat, while the largest seat, that of the Isle of Wight, is 156.7 per cent of the average. So it is possible to go a long way towards reducing the disparity without transgressing the line drawn by the Minister. The other point I want to make in preparation for the discussions I hope we will have is this. There is not just one thing you can change here; there are two. There is the limit of 5 per cent, 10 per cent or whatever turns out to be the right figure, but there is also the degree of attention that the Boundary Commissions are asked to give to their rules as to the circumstances in which they can allow exceptions. I agree with the Minister that, on the whole, the Boundary Commission has perhaps been too slack and paid too much attention to the rules on observing local boundaries and so on compared with its standing instructions on size. This is something on which it will take its instructions from Parliament, and something on which, with the co-operation of the Minister, I am quite sure a number of us can bottom out. I hope most of all, and this is a perfectly genuine remark, that, at the end of what has been a testing period for this House, we can achieve what in my 10 years’ experience here has so often been achieved—that is, we can give the Government their legislation in a form that makes it still better than the form in which it was conceived.