Electoral Administration Bill

moved Amendment No. 1:"Page 1, line 5, leave out ““one or more schemes (CORE schemes)”” and insert ““a scheme (CORE scheme)””" The noble Baroness said: First, I thank the Minister for a letter that I received this morning. I am very grateful to her for it; it is helpful to have the information. The amendment is the first of a large batch that I have prepared to address the establishment of the CORE schemes. The view on these Benches is that, if it is a ““they””—if there is to be more than one scheme—it will be highly problematical, not least technologically. It was alarming enough to read that the electoral register would be available online. The problems of so-called ““function creep”” have been well documented by publicity surrounding the debate on identity cards; but to read within the first few lines of the Bill that there could perhaps be not only one CORE scheme but several around the country has perplexed and worried me. What I find most strange is that in an enterprise as ambitious as launching the electoral register on to the Internet can be so poorly laid out in primary legislation. Even in subsection (1), I find conditional phrase after conditional phrase. It says:"““The Secretary of State may . . . make provision . . . in connection with . . . specified electoral registration information by a person designated by a scheme””." The clause describes a series of actions, but there is no substance behind them. What is more, the wording strikes me as particularly circular. It seems that a scheme is to be run by somebody who is designated by the scheme before the scheme has appointed a person. The reality will be that the Secretary of State could in theory arbitrarily appoint a CORE keeper; in addition, there are the wider order-making powers enabled by later clauses. The fact that the Secretary of State is able to establish the scheme or schemes, as and when, is highly unsatisfactory. There is a possibility that the schemes could be piloted in some areas of the country and not in others. Some systems could be set up with different resources from others, thereby making the system as a whole ineffective. The CORE scheme in general seems an unnecessary addition of duties to the electoral registration officers and an unnecessary burden on the electoral process as a whole. It seems only sensible that if the scheme is to be introduced at all, it should all happen at the same time and under the same funding. The skeletal provisions made for the CORE schemes in primary legislation are due to the fact that Her Majesty’s Government have not consulted extensively enough on this idea—although I have the consultation paper. I gather that the consultation has not, as is the wont, been completed before we deal with this Bill. I was surprised to read that the attitude to planning the CORE schemes is that, to quote the consultation paper:"““Earlier regulation is still, however, a fall back option if the preferred approach runs out of steam””." It seems that so far very little thought has been put into the CORE scheme. Given the escalating costs of the council tax evaluation computer system, I wonder whether the Government might not have learnt the lesson that a lack of thought usually results in the loss of precious, badly needed funding. I beg to move.