Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The date for the boundary review is inevitably a snapshot. During the period of all boundary reviews, people are added to the register. As I said, the date of 1 December 2015 was approved by this House when the relevant legislation went through, and any interference with the current review would mean that the next election would be fought on boundaries dating from the year 2000. That cannot be in the interests of democracy.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, some people would think that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, was brazen; others that he was brave. Does my noble friend remember that it was the former Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Democrat party who scuppered all this in a fit of pique when he lost his Bill on reform of the House of Lords?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend uses language which I would not dream of using at the Dispatch Box, but it is indeed the case that the coalition agreement, which was ratified by Liberal Democrat MPs and the membership of the Liberal Democrat party, committed them to reducing the number of MPs by 50, and that that legislation was taken through the other place by the Deputy Prime Minister, the leader of the Liberal Democrats. I cannot understand why the Liberal Democrats now seek to distance themselves from a measure which their former leader piloted through Parliament.