Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Introducing a specific hierarchy of priorities is rather more problematic than the noble Lord might think. One problem would be that if you try to prescribe exactly in which order the commission must take into account different factors, you open up the Boundary Commission process to legal challenges down the road, which would cause greater uncertainty, including to Members in another place, about the eventual outcome. It seems to me that for flexibility in the different criteria that the Boundary Commission has to follow, it is better to say, ““in general, in so far as it sees fit””. When it sees fit how to take into account those different criteria, we should address in this House how much flexibility it may have in trying to equalise the electorates.