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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord for that, and I accept his assurance that that is the best answer that we are going to get. He is right about that. This has been an important debate. It has been limited in contributions, but they have been distinguished by their pithiness. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, I do not feel that I have no sense of history—I think that I have a different sense of history from him. The instances that he gave precisely illustrate the point. All the instances of these great constitutional turning points in our recent history that he evidenced did not come out of nowhere—they were the subject of prolonged and vigorous debate in and outside Parliament. Nobody with the best will in the world can say anything like that in relation to the proposals in this Bill. That is precisely the point and purpose of this amendment: to allow space for a proper consultation to take place. I was extremely struck by what can come across only as contempt by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and the Leader of the House, about consulting the public on this. We have heard very little about that in all the debates, but it is very important. We had a very good debate about local inquiries just a few minutes ago in this Chamber, but what about the broader issues? These are the electoral arrangements for the people of this country to determine how they elect their Government. It is not our Government—it is their Government. We have had no consultation. We have had no Green Paper, no White Paper, no pre-legislative scrutiny, none of the more modern forms of engagement with the public that I would like to see, such as deliberative engagement where people come together and discuss these issues, sometimes for days at a time—none of that. I find the contempt for the British public shown by the Benches opposite profoundly depressing and, incidentally, at odds with all the rhetoric from the Prime Minster and the Deputy Prime Minister about a ““new politics””. This has been a pithy debate but rather a saddening one with regard to the way that the British public have been treated by the government Benches. I want to comment on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, about remedying the unfairness. I understand how deeply the Conservative Party feels that the system is unfair, of course I do, and he has put it very well. However, he has to understand that there are other issues that come into play, as my noble friend Lord Soley said, and we all have a strong sense ourselves of what is fair. I am afraid that fairness is always a relative point. If we are going to command the respect of the British people that this is an impartial process, it is not, with respect, the noble Lord or I who should be judging what is fair and what is not; it should be an independent and impartial inquiry that is seen to be such. That is the point of this amendment. Despite all this, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, came up with the same old argument that this measure has to be pushed through for the next general election; it cannot wait for the election after next. The sense of history of the noble Lord, Lord Renton, is out the window, according to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I respectfully point out to him that great swathes of British history are not measured by the period from one general election to the next; they are measured by decades and generations. Given that sort of timeframe, why is he so bothered that it has to be the next general election rather than the one after it? He has no answer at all. I am afraid that because of the poverty of the response that I have had from the government Front Benches—incidentally, before I conclude, I want to say that the noble Lord is right: I kick myself that we were not able to put this committee into place. Perhaps he could just intervene on me; in fact, I would be grateful if he would. If I had succeeded in my aim to set up this commission before the general election and the election had been the same, would he have scrapped it or abided by it? I will give way to him now. Will he tell me?