Lord Forsyth of Drumlean:
I know that noble Lords opposite are thinking back to Mr James Callaghan and all that, but that was a long time ago. In those days, there was a very big row about it as I recall. Of course, it could be argued that a deal was done by the coalition whereby they got their AV referendum, and I may say the Prime Minister risked the future of the Conservative Party as a party of government by agreeing to that. The Liberals believed that they could win it and the voters gave their answer; yet here today we have the Liberals still trying to gerrymander our constitution. That is what is going on here because they voted for the legislation which has been approved by Parliament that gave an instruction to the Boundary
Commission. The right thing to do now is for both Houses to approve the Boundary Commission proposals. That has been the precedent and this is an attempt to gerrymander our constitution for political reasons because it has occurred to the Liberals that they might very well evaporate at the next general election. All they have to hang on to is the thought that they might be able to hang on with the benefit of incumbency. Of course, if we had fair constituencies, many of their people would not have that incumbency and they would lose their seats. So they are putting their own party interests before the democratic interest, dressing that up as some kind of defence of democracy and linking it with House of Lords reform.
5 pm
On the subject of House of Lords reform, down the Corridor, PPSs in this Government were sacked because they voted against a Bill which was not thought out and was simply ridiculous. Those PPSs were sacked and told that their careers were over. I understand that tonight we are to see Liberal Ministers going through the Lobby voting against the Government. Are they to be sacked? I think not. I have a proposition. There must be among some of them a faint sense of conscience. If tonight they vote with the Government of whom they are members, they may make themselves a footnote in history, because they will be the first Ministers to be sacked for supporting the Government of whom they are members. They may even find themselves the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question in future.