---

Constitutional Reform

Well, my Lords, that puts us in a very difficult position, because given what has been said on all sides of the House about the value of manifesto commitments—and bearing in mind our experience in 1997—I fear that there are major questions still arising from that issue. This has been a very wide-ranging debate, and I could not expect the Minister to respond to all the points made, but I hope that the Government will look very carefully indeed at Hansard. That is because from all parts of the House there have been really serious contributions on what I regard as a major issue—even if the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, does not—which is the confidence of our fellow citizens in how we operate. I hope that the Minister will therefore look at that again. From the very interesting speech made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell, whom I welcome very much to our deliberations—he has obviously had time to examine them with some care—it sounded to me as if he thought that some of my colleagues were dangerous radicals in a great rush. His cautionary tone was very appropriate, but I am reminded that Mr Gladstone was attacked for being an old man in a hurry. Somebody told me today that once you are over the hill, you can accelerate. Well, some of the issues that we have been addressing today have been around with us for many years, and if ever there was something that might be a useful motto for this House, it would be that we could accelerate before this House or, indeed, its individual Members are over the hill. What I thought particularly interesting in the contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell, was his reference to evolution, evaluation and experimentation. I may be paraphrasing what he was saying about not rushing into things. One of the great experimentations undertaken, over many years, has been the use of the single transferable vote in Northern Ireland, which has been an unqualified success in making sure that people feel that, in that multi-party context, they have a representational system that they can accept. It has gone through some difficult times during the Troubles, but the three ‘e’s in that context—experimentation, evaluation and evolution—are appropriate to today’s discussions. As I set out in my opening speech, there is a real danger that we could end up with a curious result from the coming election: a Conservative Government which is really only a southern England Government. That would be a problem. With those few words, and with grateful thanks to all who have contributed to the debate, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion. Motion withdrawn.