Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I am grateful to my noble friend for his intervention. My fear is not that the maps that are used will be flat but that they will make no difference. They may well show the contours of the mountains in between, but no notice could be taken of them, in any event. I anticipate that the Minister’s answer to my question will reference the overriding principle of equalising seats. However, that principle is of course breached by the Bill in several areas and there should not be any ideological block on debating whether it ought to be breached even more. If the Minister were to try to explain the rule by reference to the accessibility of a constituency and the ability of the Member of Parliament to travel around it, why are Argyll and Bute, with its 13 islands, or St Ives, which incorporates the Isles of Scilly, not included also as exceptions to the parity rule? It may furthermore be argued that the further loosening of the electoral parity rule by asserting the strict threshold imposed by the Bill merely brings Britain into line with other countries and international states. However, that assertion has been blown apart by an analysis of international electoral systems published this month by Democratic Audit, which concludes: "““Differences in constituency size … are to be found in Australia and the United States—where equalisation supposedly rules. Constituency size is always modified by locality and geography in some form””." The article states: "““The startling truth about the government’s proposed equalisation scheme is that it would be the most extreme version used in any national legislature based on single member constituencies in the world””." I repeat that, "““it would be the most extreme version used in any national legislature based on single member constituencies””." The quotation continues: "““This is true both in terms of the number of tolerated anomalies and the uniformity imposed on the bulk of constituencies””." The Government need to respond to these concerns. Their approach to constituency boundaries is too rigid and too uniform, but they still have time to correct the problem. There is no reason why these major reports should be rushed through without any proper consultation or analysis. We invite the Government to pause for thought and to take some time to examine how their changes would impact in practical terms—the only terms that matter—on UK constituencies and the communities that make them up. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, told the House last June that common sense and a sense of history and geography would have an influence on this process. The narrow exemptions from the electoral parity rule currently contained in the Bill are inadequate to allow for that to happen. As with so much contained, we fear, in Part 2 of the Bill, the Government need to go back to the drawing board with respect to rule 4, which is what our amendment invites them to do. I beg to move.