(13 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberI apologise. The noble Lord is absolutely right. It was the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who said that the figure was plucked from the air. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said that it was “a nice round figure”. Thank you very much. Does the 600 figure have anything to do with research from the University of Liverpool, conducted for “Newsnight”, which clearly demonstrates that Labour will be the net losers in this situation? Labour would lose 25 seats to the Tories’ 13 and the Lib Dems’ seven.
Perhaps I may say that the unspoken interventions of my noble friend Lord Dubs are more powerful than the words of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. What is the effect of removing 7.7 per cent—some 50—of the total of MPs? According to Professor King, the respected psephologist, the average constituency size will go up from 66,000, which it was at the end of the Second World War, to around 105,000 by the time of the next election.