Electoral Administration Bill

I sympathise, and I understand where the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, is coming from, but there are severe practical difficulties with Amendment No. 95. I draw the attention of noble Lords to the proposed new subsection (3), where it is suggested that the authority should have regard to the,"““maintenance of an equal number of electors per seat above all other considerations when determining all electoral boundaries””." There may be other Members of this Committee who have attended Boundary Commission hearings. I pay tribute to the Boundary Commission, which does an extraordinarily difficult job, as the noble Baroness said. But it is a cumbersome process and it takes a long time. The prospect of going all the way around the country again at the speed proposed by the noble Baroness is, frankly, mind-boggling. Yesterday, the Leader of the Conservative Party suggested that the number of Members of Parliament and therefore of constituencies should be cut by a third. That is a recipe for constipation in our constitution. It would take at least five years for every single existing Member of Parliament and every single member of each constituency party to challenge such a proposal. The idea is absolutely ludicrous. This sort of suggestion presents very considerable problems. I am sure that it is a probing amendment and my contribution will be to probe it further. Let me illustrate the sort of problems that would arise if it was seriously proposed that above all other considerations, equality of the electorate should be the determining issue. I turn to Orkney and Shetland. What are we to do? Should we add one or two of the Western Isles to bring up the population level? I have a particular problem with what I shall call the great nation of Cornwall. The suggestion that every so often we would either have to take in a bit of Devon or give a bit to Devon would be met with the worst rebellion since that against the English prayer book in the 16th century. We would have people marching on London. The tale of my ancestral hero, Bishop Jonathan Trelawny, would be as nothing compared with the row that would take place if Devon took over Cornwall. The noble Baroness is quite right to point out that very considerable changes take place between general elections. There may well be a case for accelerating the process, but the idea that one should take note of what may have happened at every general election is difficult. We have seen a very considerable increase in the population and therefore the electorate in Cornwall over recent years. Does that mean that each time it happened, we would have to bring about a change in our situation? The practical difficulties of imposing this set of criteria in such terms—the amendment states clearly that this is to be ““above all other considerations””—would be appalling. There would be complete constipation in the entire boundary review process. I sympathise with the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. She is quite right to point out that we do have a problem in our electoral system about equality of value in the voting system, but that is endemic to first past the post, and she and her party will discover that if they have not done so already. Some wiser heads in the party have already discovered it. First past the post does not give equal value to each vote, but I am afraid that to suggest that the Boundary Commission could somehow cure the problem is simply nonsense.