Electoral Administration Bill

I wish to express my sympathy with the amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I am particularly sympathetic to Amendment No. 14, which is very desirable in principle. I also wish to reinforce his arguments on Amendment No. 15. The Bill needs to make clear which register is definitive. I have had experience with databases that should have been identical, but were not. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has spoken of the difficulties that can creep in. Indeed, we can find an example from voting lists in the House of Commons. It used to be the case that the list in the Votes and Proceedings was the definitive one and the list that appeared in Hansard was not. There have been differences between the two lists on more than one occasion. However much one might think that such a thing cannot or will not happen, it can happen, and therefore we need to specify which list is definitive. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, but shall not expand on the point for two reasons: first, because he gave all the reasons; and, secondly, from the look on the Minister’s face, I think that he may get a positive response. I just wish to put on record my strong support for Amendment No. 15.