Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

I do not deny that for a moment. I think the noble Lord has been so busy making speeches that he has perhaps not had an opportunity of reading Hansard because that point has been made.

My second point again applies to this group of amendments.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Does the noble Lord accept that some of us would contest the contribution of my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock? The noble Lord will remember from stories told by secretaries in the House of Commons during the period when I was there that there were often conversations between Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative secretaries in which they discussed workload. It very often surfaced during the conversations that Labour Members in inner-city seats had a far bigger workload than other Members of Parliament. My noble friend obviously contests this, but he had a secretary who I am sure was involved in those conversations as, indeed, was the noble Lord’s. It was well known.

[Lord Tyler]

I apologise to the noble Lord because I do not understand what he is saying. All I am saying is that I think we should all accept in all parts of the House that both those representing rural constituencies and those representing urban constituencies can have an enormous workload. The way in which they respond to that workload is not something that I want to pursue.

I want to make another general point about this whole group. I am not a lawyer, but I am uneasy about too many special exemptions in any legislation. I think it is much better if you can design legislation so that you incorporate sufficient flexibility so that you do not have to have, in the words of this Bill, too many preserved constituencies. I understand the arguments—