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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I should like to return to the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), having perhaps given the Minister slightly more time to reflect on the genuinely valid points that my hon. Friend raised. I know that colleagues from other parties were also nodding in agreement when he was raising them. The returning officers in Scotland are up to the same trick that they were trying to pull before the 2010 general election, when the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) gave a clear instruction to the returning officers that they could not delay the start of the count for that general election in Scotland until the following day. Let me place the Minister under notice that I shall seek two guarantees from him and the Deputy Leader of the House. The first is that he speaks urgently to the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland—I suspect he will have a number of opportunities to speak to them in the Division Lobbies in the next four hours—to get them to set the record straight on the Scotland Office position on the counting. Will the Minister also guarantee—I will take him at his word, as he is an honourable Gentleman—that either he or the Secretary of State will write to the returning officers in Scotland to remind them that they receive a payment for carrying out these duties?