Before I focus on what the Minister has said about the amendment, may I thank him, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, for responding on a whole range of issues to the concerns that have been expressed in this House? The Government really have moved a significant way; there is no doubt about that. But I think we are all aware that the Bill as it came to us in the first place was an appalling piece of legislation. A parliamentarian of very many years’ experience said to me that it was the worst piece of legislation that they had ever seen in a long parliamentary career. “Not quite”, I am hearing, so there must be some other cases as bad.
Again, the value of this House has been shown, as has the willingness of Ministers in this House to listen, so I genuinely thank them. I also thank noble Lords on all sides of the House who have supported some of the amendments tabled in my name and in the names of others. Not least, I thank members of the Electoral Commission, whose expertise I have had the privilege to share. The people there have worked extraordinarily hard. When I look at my e-mails in the morning I find that, night after night, they were sent off in the small hours of the morning; that gives you some indication of how hard they have worked.
Focusing on the amendment, I am disappointed that the Government have not been able to respond more positively. We made a genuine attempt to meet the point that they made about distributing leaflets, and the need to define very carefully what was or was not meant by a constituency in which there was an attempt to affect people’s voting intentions. Rallies have just been mentioned, but as the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, said, if people want to get round restrictions on rallies they could easily do so by having a rally just outside a constituency where there is a narrow majority. There are all sorts of ways round, even as the Bill now stands.
My final point is about the Electoral Commission. I reiterate that it supported the amendment that has been moved today in my name and in the names of others. It said that there were still some difficulties with monitoring, but those would be nothing like the difficulties that it will have if the Bill goes through with the provisions on constituency limits unchanged.
That will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the Electoral Commission. It is slightly surprising that the Government have not listened more carefully to what it has said. I think that the strength of feeling in the House on this issue is such that I ought to test the opinion of the House.