Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I am sorry. I got the numbers wrong, but the point that I am making is very simple. It was not a cap; it was a target. That is what is wrong with this legislation. We are talking about caps and not targets. When you have targets, the Boundary Commission then has flexibility. It knows what Parliament wants, it knows what people are moving towards, but it can take into account all the additional pressures and considerations that normally arise during the course of public inquiries about decisions that it has to take. I turn now to the actual wording of the rule. The amendments that we are dealing with are essentially about rule 5(1) on page 10 of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, quite rightly refers specifically to this question of, ““If they think fit””. Those words are very important, because they are part of the first sentence in the rule: "““A Boundary Commission may take into account, if and to such an extent as they think fit””," when considering these matters. That leaves it with two options. It can either take them into account or it can ignore them. If it goes on to ignore, "““(a) special geographical considerations, including in particular the size, shape and accessibility of a constituency;""(b) local government boundaries as they exist on the most recent ordinary council-election day before the review date;""(c) any local ties that would be broken by changes in constituencies;""(d) the inconveniences attendant on such changes””." in my view it would not be carrying out its function. The Boundary Commission’s function is to consider those matters, but if it cannot carry out its proper consideration of those matters because of the cap, its whole raison d’être is defeated and it may as well not even bother to carry out any function at all. The Government might just as well draw up the map and not even have a Boundary Commission.