Clause 1 - Piloting conduct at European
European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill
10:30 am
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I always watch the entertainment between the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok, whom we miss in this Committee, when they are in the Chamber, but I had not seen the double act between the hon. Member for Glasgow, Anniesland and the hon. Member for Stroud before.
However, now that we are all concentrating, my point was that we are genuinely worried about whether a real consultation is happening. On Second Reading last week, I expressed my party's grave suspicion that the process is all cut and dried. As I put it then, if in due course the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs in another place, or Lord Chancellor, or whatever he is calling himself by then, ends up announcing that the three pilot areas will be the three areas that Labour Back Benchers were dragooned into the Chamber to call for one after another—Scotland, the north-east and the north-west—we will know that, in the traditions of old Chicago politics, the fix has gone in.