Electoral Administration Bill

I thank the Minister for her comments. Before I respond to what she said, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, that I am never embarrassed when he or other sensible Members of this House agree with what I am saying. In fact, I pinch myself and think, ““Well, I’m not quite so out on a limb as sometimes I might think I am””. On the most recent occasion when I was sitting here in Committee—it was on the Commons Bill—one of the noble Lord’s noble friends was sitting next to me and kept standing up and referring to me as his noble friend. Everyone was quite amused by that. I do not mind. I am grateful to the Minister for her response. What she said about the status of the local electoral registers and the national record is very clear. I would love to spend some time looking at the definitive legislation and I would be grateful if she could point me to exactly the right bits, so that I do not spend too much time ploughing through it all to find the parts she was referring to. The Minister’s other point was that what is proposed does not go further than an overarching record. That was also the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, raised. We understand and accept that. However, some of us also understand that a national record would provide opportunities for the government of this country at some time in the future—perhaps sooner, perhaps later—to move into areas into which some of us do not want to go. However, that in itself is not a reason for opposing the proposal at this stage, if there are other good reasons for having such a record. There are clearly some good reasons for having it, not least the tools that it could provide to tackle fraud. There are battles that we will have to fight about other methods of voting and so on—at least, we will have to look at the issues very critically—but that is for the future and not for now. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, raises extremely important points and we should be very aware of the opportunities that CORE will provide to do things that we do not want to do. As I said, however, that is for the future.