Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I support my noble friend’s case about Argyll. I have had a home in Argyll for almost 30 years. The issues that he raises about the complexity of travel cannot be overstated. Most of the roads in Argyll and Bute are single-track roads with passing places. I used to travel up on a Thursday night with Ray Michie. As I pointed out the other night, I would be home in bed before she had even managed to get her car defrosted to do a journey of up to two and half hours to get to Oban in Argyll. I travelled around the islands a lot, particularly as Secretary of State for Scotland. There are many islands that it would be impossible for the Member of Parliament to visit and come back from on the same day, so the MP would have to remain overnight on the islands. The unfairness of the way in which Argyll and Bute is being treated in this legislation gives me cause for alarm. The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, represented a constituency that was a series of islands. He, more than anybody else, knows the complexity of representing islands. It is an oversight of overwhelming proportions that Argyll and Bute should not be given special status in the Bill. If a boundary commissioner were even to visit the islands and look at their complexity, the commissioner would probably be lost for a month.