Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I shall make a brief contribution and acknowledge that a number of very succinct and relevant points have been made in this debate, which contrast with the way in which the argument was taken forward earlier in the week. I do not in any way disrespect the cases that have been made on behalf of specific areas of the country, because I took great pride in the constituency which I had the pleasure of representing for a number of years. I want to make two general points about this whole group of amendments. Incidentally, I understand that the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Teverson is now in a different group, so I will not address that. First, there have been a number of occasions when those who have direct experience of urban areas have suggested that somehow rural areas do not deserve the same amount of attention and that their Members of Parliament do not have as much work. Since I was the representative of a very big, scattered rural constituency during the period of both foot-and-mouth and BSE—and I know that there other Members who had this experience—I have to say that a Member of Parliament can be on 24-hour call in a rural constituency. I do not wish to pursue that. Indeed, I know of the long distances and the difficult topography in the particular case of Argyll and Bute, which I had the pleasure of visiting when I was responsible for rural policy for my party in the other House. It is important in this House that we do not create an artificial distinction between urban and rural constituencies. I am trying to be brief.