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Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill (Money) (No. 3)

I totally agree, but I do not want to go down that particular route; I want to try to move on the debate a little. Should the plug in the control box not have been pulled and should our constituents be watching this debate, they will think how old-fashioned it is that the only way in which we are talking about election is in respect of the old parliamentary system. There has been a big debate in the country about how we select candidates. Some people have an objection to safe seats; the answer, surely, is to consider seriously—not necessarily embrace—paying some attention to the mechanisms by which we select candidates. My own seat of Birkenhead is quite safe—it was at the last election, at least. The real fight is about who will be the Labour candidate. I would welcome our having an open primary, in which there was a real contest for the Labour candidature; everybody would know that the person who won that would also win the seat. The quid pro quo would probably be that we would move back to seeing uncontested returns in ““safe seats”” where open primaries were held.