Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

No, it is an argument for having fair votes in fairly drawn constituencies. One or two Members concede that the principle of votes of equal weight is important—and that is what keeps coming up against the Opposition’s objections. The flexibility that is consistently being urged upon us by the Opposition would, if we accepted every one of their ideas, fatally undermine the concept of votes of equal weight, and they know that. I am willing to leave it to the independent Boundary Commission to work out some of the issues that have been raised. As I have pointed out before, there are matters within the guidance that would give it certain flexibility, but not to throw the baby out with the bathwater—and the baby in this case is votes of equal weight.