My hon. Friend is right to be concerned about that.
The Joint Committee took evidence from Australian senators. The Australian system is similar to that proposed in the Bill. Senator Ursula Stephens from the governing Labour party told us:
“I am allocated a number of seats that are not held by the Government in the lower House in my state. I look after those constituents who do not have a government representative. Those people might come to me about issues and legislation.”
Senator Lee Rhiannon from the Australian Greens said:
“we have nine Senators and only one Member in the House of Representatives. The issue of working with constituents is very important for us and it takes up quite a bit of time.”
Senator Michael Ronaldson of the Opposition Liberal Party said:
“I do not think that you can make the assumption that you will not be engaged in constituency-type work, particularly if the elected Lords in an area—as Senator Stephens said—come from the other party. If you are a Member of the non-ruling party, the Lords might find that they have more people knocking on their doors than they might otherwise have anticipated.”
When the Clerk of the House gave evidence, he spoke of the danger of “constituency case tourism”. We must try to avoid such constituency conflicts.