I start by thanking the Minister but also the former Chief Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott; the former law officer, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris; the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, and the others I am going to mention, for their contribution to this debate.
First, I have some bad news for the noble Lord, Lord Hayward: he did not invent “automaticity”. It was used for the allocation of the seats on the TUC, of which I was supportive, but I confess that it was part of the grubby deal. We shall have to read the book to see the details. He may have applied it here, but I am really sorry, it is not his original term, although it is quite useful.
The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, says that automaticity is reasonable if one trusts the Government—I may have added “if” in rather strong language, but that is important. My noble friend Lord Foulkes says he is suspicious of the motivation behind this. I think my noble friend Lord Liddle is right when he talks about what else is going on—what is the environment that has led to the change to remove the parliamentary say?
I hope the stuff I am getting on my other devices is not accurate, but we are hearing from the press that Brandon Lewis has admitted that the Northern Ireland protocol proposals would indeed breach international law. Obviously, we saw the resignation of a senior legal officer earlier today. Asking us at this moment to trust the Government and all their motivations is quite a hard ask. Therefore, the ability of this mother of all Parliaments to have its final say is important.
Orders in Council, which are the suggestion in the Bill, are pretty rare. I have been involved in them in changing the name of a university and with an organisation gaining chartered status. I think the noble Lord, Lord True, kindly sent me a couple of other examples, but no others have actually involved major constitutional issues. I think my noble friend Lord Grocott said, although others did as well, that these are constitutional issues. How MPs are to represent their constituencies as well as their constituents—we will come on to that; I dealt with it at Second Reading—is an important constitutional issue. It is not simply a technical one.
I am very pleased that we have had this discussion in Committee, because it will enable the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Tyler, to look at whether the Government will move on their other amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, could think about supporting this to retain the parliamentary role if other changes are not made. Although the noble Lord, Lord True, quotes from the Constitution Committee report, there is the word “however”—and I think it is in bold. Our colleagues suggest that there should be changes to absolutely ensure the independence of the Boundary Commission. Even there, although it says that it is constitutionally acceptable, there is a big “however”.
As colleagues will have gathered, the Opposition do not support having the automaticity of Boundary Commission recommendations becoming law with no parliamentary intervention. The noble Lord, Lord True, always treats our amendments very seriously. He said that I have not persuaded him, but I am afraid he has
also failed to convince me of the need for this change. Clearly, we will look at what response is given to the other amendments, but we might need to return to this on Report. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.