I thought the hon. Gentleman took the view that Her Majesty was the final authority; he is obviously becoming a republican in his older age.
We have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s argument. He was right to talk about having two constituencies side by side, or indeed one surrounding the other—I think that his constituency completely surrounds that of Bath—and made some valid points about the square mileage and number of hectares in each. We do not necessarily agree that the situation differs for rural and urban constituencies. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) pointed out, that would be determined more by public transport links, particularly the provision of bus services.
None the less, we think that the hon. Member for North East Somerset has raised a valid point. For example, we are concerned that Ministers are not at this stage able to give us greater clarity about opening hours, and that relates to a broader point. I refer the House to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s report, which set out a concern about the use of Henry VIII powers. That simply means that the Government are
seeking to state in primary legislation that all the detail will be covered by secondary legislation, and they have not yet had a chance to set out those provisions.
We are concerned that the Government do not have a clear position on opening hours. There is an argument that opening hours should be from 7 am to 10 pm, as they are in a general election. Equally, however, if the Government are proposing ultimately to use city chambers, town halls and council offices, perhaps it would unreasonable to require additional opening hours over an eight-week period. My understanding is that central Government would pick up those costs, rather than individual local authorities, so I wonder whether the Minister, if he receives inspiration before having to reply, could say when the Government worked out the £55,000 cost of running a recall petition. Was that based on opening hours of 9 am to 5 pm in up to four locations, or opening hours of 7 am to 10 pm?
The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) raised an important point about security—if I recall correctly, she made the same point last week during the Committee’s first day of considerations. The Government must accept that clearly more work needs to be done to answer those points. Several hon. Members have made the point, rightly I think, that the Government are yet to set out whether in practice they would use a marked register. If we take the example of having just one location for signing a recall petition—I am conscious that we are in danger of slipping into consideration of clause 18, but this relates to the question of where a petition can be signed—is it the Government’s intention that the petition officer would be sitting with the marked register and would cross off constituents’ names as they sign the petition, or would it not be made available?