Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I know that the Minister is happy only when dealing with amendments that involve equations, particularly complex ones, and therefore he may not have been happy at the prospect of addressing this amendment. However, I want to point out one subsidiary advantage to the Bill of the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Bach—namely, that it removes an otherwise technical flaw in the Bill. The equation in the Bill, U/598—from memory, it is in paragraph 2 of proposed new Schedule 2 under Clause 11—is predicated on there being only two exempted constituencies. However, if the constituency whose name begins with Ross—I am not going to try to say the Scots constituency name as I will no doubt make some minor mispronunciation—is also exempted under the Bill, then the equation will no longer work; it would need to be U/597, and I have not seen any government amendment proposing that. Of course, were the Government to accept—and they showed some sympathy for it the other night—the revised equation that I put forward as an amendment to the Bill, which was adaptable to whatever the number of exempted constituencies might be, this problem would be removed. However, as they have not yet accepted it, their alternative is to accept the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Bach. At least the Bill would then be technically competent and the algebra would work, which it currently does not as the Bill is drafted.