Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I have no reason to doubt that. These are examples of island communities which are linked to and can readily be combined with the mainland. We took extreme geographical circumstances into account. If the preserved constituencies were linked and combined with part of the mainland, their surface area would almost inevitably be larger than that of the largest current constituency. In the course of our debates in Committee, concerns have been expressed by many noble Lords about the distances which people have to travel. I recall in one debate—I cannot remember which of the many—someone talking about the possibility of having to drive for two-and-a-half hours to get to a place. In Orkney and Shetland, it can require two-and-a-half hours even to get to one part of Orkney, let alone travel from Orkney to Shetland—you can travel from Orkney to Shetland by plane, but you then have to go very much further again.