Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I speak as treasurer and secretary of the House of Lords Yacht Club and I am an islander. Historically, I come from Islay. My family are normally buried at sea and the female line like to have their caskets dropped off the Nab Tower—perhaps the Government can advise me on whether the Nab Tower is, or is not, part of the Isle of Wight. However, I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Hamilton, with whom I have the advantage of sharing an office. I recognise that the two householders who tabled Amendment 89 have a certain interest because they live on the Isle of Wight; my interest lies in the fact that, when I was a Pompey rating, I had to row across the Solent from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight and back—I had to sail in a single cutter—and, just before Suez, I was shoved on an aircraft carrier and made to be ballast in a helicopter as we were dropped off on the Isle of Wight because plans were being made to invade Suez later. My feeling is this: there are some 70,000 islands and atolls in the world. All islanders are islanders; they do not like anyone else and they are a united community. It is not the same as a community that is divided on the mainland. There are islanders who have suffered from weather, affliction and everything else. In my job, I had one very difficult time, when we had invested in a hovercraft service—