AV Bill row: Lords take the chance to sleep on it

Bafflement in the Lords, which just rose early when everyone had been braced for hours more.

The House Speaker pointed at the mace, urging someone to carry it out and end the session formally and I think a first-time official ended up doing it as he had to be coached through the procedures.

The Government had already said it wouldn’t take things through the night tonight (Lords authorities said staff and Hansard writers could do with a break) and would end the session at dinner time – but Labour speeded up its foot-dragging and so they got through the amendments scheduled for the afternoon a lot more quickly.

There is now a window for negotiation. Labour says it detects a “different tone” from the Coalition. The area for potential negotiation is the size of variation in constituency size (could they vary by more than the 5 per cent laid down in the Bill creating a bit more flexibility?).

Labour says that Government Minister and former Deputy First Minister of Scotland Lord (Jim) Wallace gave them an indication that the Government was willing to think about a concession on the variation in seat size. The Government Minister I spoke to said there’s no change in the Government’s position.

So there’s still every chance that there is no negotiation tonight: just sleep and everyone returns tomorrow for more of the same and a session that could go into the night.