Scott Martin:

That is, in a sense, a highly political question. Do you want politicised districting—everyone has difficulty with that word—or independent districting? Do you want the model they have in the United States, where the word “gerrymander” comes from? The logic is that if you have an independent commission model, which we have had here since the commissions were put on a permanent footing, the ability for political interference is minimised. Automaticity, as it has been described, is a sensible approach to take on that—although clearly, as we have seen from a variety of reviews, including the last two, ultimately, if Parliament wants to stop a review, or wants to proceed or another basis, that can happen, but unless we move to having a written constitution, which I would obviously support, that is not something that we can legislate for.