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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I promise the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, that I will genuinely be brief. I had not intended intervening in this debate, but it occurred to me as I was listening that if, for some bizarre reason, BBC Parliament and Radio 1 got confused and Radio 1 listeners had to listen to the nature of the debate we have had tonight, they would assume that this House had been overtaken by Martians because we are talking geek language. We are geeks, and we live the language of electoral registers and the necessity to get people involved in the democratic process. But if we take it right back to basics, we have to be honest on all sides of this House that the craft of politics is held in very low regard in this country at the present time. We have an opportunity with this amendment to go some little way towards trying to restore that. This should not be a partisan point. Those of us interested in democracy and in the constitution of this country do so from the best possible motives. The way in which the Bill is crafted reads as if the lowest common denominator would be acceptable; that is, to get a register regardless of how accurate that register is. If we are to make a breakthrough particularly with young people, disadvantaged people and those who feel that they are outside the system, if they turn up at a polling place and find that they are not on that register, we will have undone all the work that all of us in this House want to see done to re-engage people with the craft of politics. I urge the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness—I know that his freedom of manoeuvre is limited—at least to say that he will look at these issues and the very important points that my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer made in his introductory remarks. The fact that a complete review has to be made of every constituency in this country is a measure of the scale of what is involved here. If the coalition Government were prepared to look at that, I am sure that we could together work to find a way that would help to reassure people that at least the lowest common denominator is not acceptable.