My Lords, I have enjoyed the speeches so far in this debate. I come here as a former chair of the political parties parliamentary panel of the Electoral Commission. We had something to do with elections and it is our fault that MPs had those reviews and the consequences of them. It seemed to me that the most important thing to the MPs whom I and other parties dealt with at the same time were the lines on the map: “Where will my majority be most or least affected?” So the co-operation between parties was immense in many respects in drawing up the constituencies, because it was a question of trading these voters for those voters and so on, to protect each other’s majorities and therefore the relationship.
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I take the point that my noble friends Lord Foulkes and Lord Blunkett made that the importance to MPs was about their ongoing relationship with their constituency and their constituents. To have that interfered with too soon would be a mistake. Therefore, 10 years is about right. There is no absolute in this, but it is
better than eight years and certainly better than five years. It allows the relationship to exist between the MP and those whom he represents.
It is also true that the 10-year cycle aligns better with the other electoral cycles that we now have. We still have the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, although I know that there is a commitment to review it; we have Scottish and Welsh Assembly elections; we have mayoral elections; and we have police commissioner elections, and so on and so forth, all on fixed cycles. Therefore, the predictability of the electoral cycle, as my noble friend Lord Lipsey said, and the outcome of the boundary reviews coming 10 years in advance of a subsequent election a year or so beyond that, would be hugely beneficial from where we are now. So it seems to me and the Labour Party that 10 years is about right. I ask the Minister to consider: why not 10 years? Why eight years rather than 10 years? Why is it seen to be a fairer system to have a shorter period between reviews? I personally feel that the 10-year cycle would allow for greater alignment and greater relationship building between those who represent a constituency and those who are represented.