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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I will go one better. In a few moments, I will cite for the hon. Gentleman not what I think, but what assistant commissioner Nicholas Elliot QC concluded after he had heard evidence from political parties. In the fifth review, both Labour and the Conservatives presented carefully researched and reasoned cases to the boundary commissions. That enabled proper arguments and options to be presented to the assistant commissioners. That was hardly illicit manipulation of the process; rather, it was open and transparent, and there was an inquiry. I ask the question: how open and transparent will the process be if people only get to write in and do not have an inquiry, where the public can see what representations are made? It is far better for political parties to get involved than just to have a rigid mathematical formula to decide how seats are drawn up.