European Parliament (Number of MEPs and Distribution between Electoral Regions) (United Kingdom and Gibraltar) Order 2008

I am afraid that it is not within my power to give seats to Wales or even to my beloved East Midlands—I cannot do it, much as I might wish to. I can say a word or two about the Sainte-Laguë method, if the Committee will bear with me. I very much invite noble Lords who have a huge interest to look at the document, Distribution Between Electoral Regions of UK MEPs, which was published in July 2007 by the Electoral Commission. Appendix A provides the detailed workings of, "““Full iterative working: the Sainte-Laguë method””." I do not claim for a moment that I understand it, but it is absolutely fascinating. André Sainte-Laguë was a professor of applied mathematics at the Conservatoire National des Artes et Métiers in Paris. He devised a mathematical formula for apportioning seats in elections where a proportional voting system is used. We use that system in the European elections. The Sainte-Laguë method is a devisor method with standard rounding and is similar to the d’Hondt method. The whole Committee will agree with the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who said how much we miss Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish; d’Hondt was completely his. It is used to distribute seats to parties at European parliamentary elections, as well as in the selection of additional member seats to the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the London Assembly. Noble Lords will recall with pleasure that under that method, seats are allocated one by one at each stage to the region with the highest number of electors, after that number has been divided by the number of seats already allocated—wait for it—plus one. The Sainte-Laguë method is similar, but uses different divisors. The regional electorates are divided by two times the number of seats already allocated, plus one. Whereas the d’Hondt method uses one, two, three, four and so on as successive divisors, the Sainte-Laguë method uses one, three, five, seven and so on. Given that I have explained that so brilliantly, I know that noble Lords will absolutely understand at once how the system works, but just in case they may have missed the finer points, I strongly recommend that they look at Appendix A of the document. The system is fascinating, and is how it has been calculated that the six seats that we lose are taken away from six areas, while the other six areas retain the existing number of seats. I have spoken for quite long enough.