Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of my noble friend’s Amendment 112C. There are two types of people in particular that this amendment would help. There is still what is called a three-shift pattern in factories and elsewhere of 6 am to 2 pm, 2 pm to 10 pm, which known as a back shift, and 10 pm to 6 am on a night shift. I worked that pattern myself for many years. The 6-to-2 shift sounds great—you get into work at 6 am, finish at 2 pm and have the rest of the day to yourself. Unfortunately, most people who have worked that shift will tell you that they spend most of the afternoon lying asleep on the couch, trying to catch up with the disruption to the normal sleep pattern and normal shift pattern. You can wake up feeling disorientated at times. It may sound a bit silly but I can assure people that the disruption to your normal pattern, in working that three-shift pattern, can have that effect on you. There is also the back shift between 2 pm and 10 pm. It sounds great—you can get up in the morning and have time to do plenty of things before you start work at two o’clock. But you can have quite an extended travel time to get to work for 2 pm and, with other things to do in the morning, you may find that by the time you finish work at 10 pm the polling station is closed. As for the people who do the night shift, again it sounds great, as you have plenty of time during the day, but ask anyone who works the night shift and they will tell you that their day is disrupted. If there is a constantly changing shift pattern, working a different shift each week following the 6-to-2, 2-to-10 and 10-to-6 three-shift pattern, I can assure your Lordships that there is a disruption to the patterns of sleep and behaviour. The second category is a new and developing pattern to which my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock has referred. This is the growing number of people who manage two jobs, particularly women. It always seems to be women who get landed with the part-time jobs, though they are not quite cheap labour thanks to the Labour Government’s national minimum wage law that was opposed by the Liberals and Tories at the time. Nevertheless, these people are trying to keep two jobs going and are rushing between them. An extra hour’s voting time at the end of the day will give people an extended opportunity to vote. I believe that that category of part-time workers is growing. Again, I do not like it but they are mostly women workers because they have got to snatch a job of two or three hours to cope with child care and all the rest of it. They have to dive back, run a house, and probably get their man fed and out to work. There are some areas in the world where women still do not have a proper place in life. Keeping family together falls harder on women than on men, and I regret to say that a sexist society still operates like that. I would certainly support anything that can help women and part-time workers in that category. I would indicate my strong support particularly for Amendment 112C.