Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

The hon. Gentleman begins to make the precise point that I wish to develop, which is that this Bill already accepts the principle that there are geographical areas or communities that are either too disparate or too distinct simply to be left. There is nothing against that principle in the Bill. One could have argued—historically, it would have been easy to do so—for the old Norse principality of Orkney, which included Caithness. We could have gone back to Caithness, Orkney and Shetland. The Government have recognised that certain geographical difficulties make it important to have regard to them when building constituencies.