Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

The hon. Gentleman says I have a certain number of voters. What he and his Government colleagues are doing in the Bill is reductively defining parliamentary democracy as It states:"““In this Schedule the 'United Kingdom electoral quota' means—" I say to the hon. Gentleman and all his colleagues that this is the ultimate constitutional fetishism, because all those individuals are people who have an identity with the community. As people in Cornwall and Devon have recognised, one of the defining characteristics of this whole debate is that there are areas where people strongly identify not only with their region, but the locality. There is a Welsh word that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), but not many other Members, will recognise. ““Hiraeth”” is difficult to translate, but it means longing and identity with a place, a people, a community. My constituents will be deliriously happy to know that that can be dissolved down to the formula A Member on the Government Benches asked what was the point of his being here in Parliament and what was the point of his identifying with his area, and he is right to ask those questions. Why is one of the key figures decided on in the Bill 95% to 100% with no variation? Why do the Bill's provisions display a singular inability to recognise the diverse nature of the United Kingdom, except in two or three specific instances? Disraeli has been mentioned in our debate. When Disraeli was in a heated discussion with Gladstone across that Dispatch Box and was being defeated by the incessant logic being deployed he told him not to desist in the fanatical application of his sterile logic. That is what we are confronted with here, and I genuinely hope that when this Bill goes to the other place they who have a respect for our constitution, our devolution settlement, and the role of this Parliament and of elected representatives will stop this in its tracks, because our electorate—the people whom we represent—deserve a lot more.