Electoral Administration Bill

I did not say that this was going to be an equitable amendment. Put another way, of 118 seats that are under quota, 83 of them are Labour. Of seats that are above average quota, over half of them are Conservative. I appreciate that this is a sensitive topic. It feels rather uncomfortable to unleash those statistics, but this House is the right place to do it. For the other place, this issue reminds one of the old saying, ““turkeys voting for Christmas””. As the Upper House, it is our duty to scrutinise, and those figures demand that scrutiny. Also as a non-elected representative for our respective areas, the task of untangling the injustice of inconsistent representation of the electorate is important. There is a strong case for ending the wide disparities in the size of parliamentary constituencies, which goes beyond those revealing statistics. Each elector deserves equal representation, but at present that is not the case. The introduction of a fixed electoral quota, the electorate divided by the number of seats, would be the first step in this process of equality. A small margin of difference could be allowed to avoid splitting local government wards. Furthermore, the extensive and valued work of the Boundary Commission could be given greater effect by being implemented earlier. The last boundary review was conducted in 2000, but it will not be implemented until the next election. Since that time, there have been considerable demographic changes in a number of seats, which need to be accounted for. It is a very long time between one consideration of electoral boundaries and another. Perhaps it could be done on the census, more frequently or, more sensibly, at each election. Something needs to be done to try to address a system that is throwing up inconsistencies, where consistency is the one thing that matters most of all—apart from people being able to vote. I beg to move.