Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Faulkner of Worcester and Lord McNicol of West Kilbride

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 10th September 2020 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Lords, Lord McNicol and Lord Lipsey. I first call the noble Lord, Lord McNicol of West Kilbride.

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

I want to come back to the Minister. The Government seem to put all their weight behind the equality of the number of electors within constituencies, and have said that all the arguments from all the noble Lords who spoke in the debate are irrelevant because we would move away from equal votes of equal weight across the nations.

How does the Minister explain the exemptions that there are already in place for the islands? Yes, they are islands, but in accepting that they are special cases because they are islands, you are accepting the premise that there can be exceptions. I think that, with the arguments made—specifically the point about protecting the future of the union—these exceptions for Wales and Scotland should outweigh this crass, simplistic, mathematical argument.

I just repeat, because it is really important: under our current electoral system, which I support, if we were to make the changes proposed in the Bill and constituencies were of a similar size within quite a small variation, a single vote in Lerwick would still not be the same as a single vote in Luton. With our electoral system, you cannot make that argument.