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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I shall very briefly intervene and just make a comment before this debate closes this morning. This amendment would provide for making an order to amend the primary or secondary legislation consequential on amendments made by this clause. Any such award would have to be the subject of consultation with the Electoral Commission and also with the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament. The question is, ““Why consultation?””. I shall address my remarks to the two new noble Lords elevated to this House today, the noble Lords, Lord Lingfield and Lord Dobbs. This is a bit of a baptism of fire for them, really; they must be wondering what they have come into. It is a very good question, and the answer is very simple. We are dealing with a Bill that has been the subject of no consultation whatever. There was no inquiry, no prior scrutiny and no real notice of what was coming, and we object. We are now scrutinising this legislation line by line. Much of this could have been avoided if we had been through a proper process. What those two noble Lords are now seeing is just an abuse of Parliament by way of introducing a Bill in this way. I would advise them—and one hopes that they will stay here for many years to come—that if ever they are in a position to influence events in future, to advise their colleagues not to introduce legislation in this way in the future. Because this will go on for weeks, and only because the process that led to this legislation was wrong. That is all that I have to say.