replace dual-seat constituencies with single-seat constituencies has centred on the process by which the Government plans to make the changes.

But there hasn't been much debate about the changes themselves and what the alternatives are.

The Government has made it clear -- or as clear as it chooses to make anything -- that it wants single-seat constituencies and it wants to reduce the number of seats in the House of Assembly.

Separately, via the leaked, but never-released, Civil Service Review, Government may also reduce the number of Cabinet Ministers to eight.

And finally -- Government promised about two years ago to give the Parish Councils more powers and to make them elected bodies.

The latter point is not a Constitutional matter, but it is important because it would broaden representation at the parochial level and help to redress the loss of representation at the national level.

The Government's most powerful argument for change lies in Paget and Warwick, because there is one MP for every 625 voters in Paget compared to one MP for every 1,250 voters in Warwick.

No one can deny that this is wrong. Either the voters of Warwick need more MPs or the voters of Paget need fewer.

One way to do that is to abolish parish boundaries and to introduce single seat constituencies, each the same size. This is more or less what the Government is proposing.

It has been careful to state that the constituencies will be "roughly'' equal because it is impossible to guarantee exactly equal constituencies, first because people move in and out of the areas and secondly because constituencies are set via the allocation of postal zones, not by individual people or voters. One postal zone may have 100 people in it and another 200, thus making constituencies of identical sizes virtually impossible.

Nonetheless, the Government would argue that removing the parish boundaries would make it easier to assure the electorate of constituencies of even size.

It should be noted that the rest of the Island's constituencies are roughly equal already with one MP for every 800 voters with the exception of Sandys Parish (one per 1,100) and the aforementioned Warwick and Paget.

Carving out an additional two-seat constituency in Warwick would give the residents of Warwick fairer representation under the current dual-seat system.

That too would require a change in the Constitution, because the House would have 42 seats and Warwick would have six, but it is an alternative to the changes proposed by the Government.

There are other arguments which favour single-seat constituencies, notably that they make MPs more directly accountable to their representatives. If the MP fails to get something done, the voters know who to vote out. Under the current system, one MP can blame the other.

By the same token, the current system allows one MP to serve as a Cabinet Minister -- or as a senior member of the Opposition -- and the other to look after the parochial issues of the constituency.

Dual seats also help to diminish the tendency of the first past the post system of elections to reward the victor at the expense of the vanquished by allowing voters to split their votes or to plump for a single candidate.

In the end, there are a lot of different ways to skin the Paget/Warwick "cat''. No Government should deny the public the right to discuss all of them.