The noble Lord, Lord Desai, is once again perfectly right.
Successive Governments and Parliaments since 1981 have concluded that the existing voting rights of Commonwealth citizens should not be disturbed, and it is on this basis that the Commonwealth citizens are granted the right to vote in UK elections.
I have enormous personal sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and his husband in the situation he has outlined. The best answer I can give him is to refer back to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Desai. As a country, we have found ourselves at various times in our history as members of different families of nations; for example, the family of EU member states and the family of Commonwealth nations. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that the links and historic traditions, and hence entitlements, relating to each such family are different from one another. Our formal ties with the EU have been severed. Our ties with the Commonwealth endure. The weight of history plays a very considerable part in all sorts of aspects of our national life—