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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

For a very long time, my noble friend represented a constituency that was essentially in the centre of Birmingham, apart from the period that he was talking about: when it was adjacent to Sutton Coalfield, which by that time had itself become part of Birmingham. He might feel differently about his lack of objection to cross-county boundaries if he was trying, for example, to represent part of the city of Birmingham and a bit of Worcestershire or part of the city of Birmingham and a bit of Staffordshire or Warwickshire. I think he would find that an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. That really is one of the main reasons why, for all the rough justice involved in some of the judgments that Boundary Commissions have had to make in the past, trying to abide by local authority boundaries is a common-sense thing to do, both for the MP and more importantly for the people whom that MP represents.