Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I am grateful to the Minister for giving us some of the detail on the amendments, although he has not given all of it, which is significant. I would like to start by picking up where the Parliamentary Secretary finished—on the due process that needs to be followed in relation to anything when it reflects the representation of the people, constitutional matters, or the constitutional relationship between Westminster and the devolved Administrations, but which has not, I believe, been followed in this case. Of course, there should first be pre-legislative scrutiny, but, as we have heard, the Bill has had absolutely none. It is true that the Government published the Bill, but it exists not because of some grand constitutional principle but because of some naked partisan gerrymandering of a Bill. I am sure that if it had been published in pre-legislative form, so that a Committee of this House or a Joint Committee of both Houses had been able to consider it, that Committee would have said, right at the beginning, ““You shouldn't be spatchcocking together these two elements of the Bill””—[Interruption.] Or, ““You shouldn't be kebabbing the legislation in this way.”” The Parliamentary Secretary helps me. It is not really spatchcocking; it is more kebabbing. It requires more of an inner-city image than a rural image; he is quite right.