Electoral Administration Bill

Looking at this, I wondered initially whether it was simply a matter of wording—then I wondered if it might be slightly more a matter of principle. We could be talking about a person in the electoral registration office; perhaps the alternative wording that we should consider is ““body””—the particular organisation responsible for all this. The intention is a little unclear and either amendment of the wording might be appropriate—the amendment suggested by Amendment No. 12 or an alternative of simply saying ““body””, which might be more in line with the Government’s thinking. On Amendment No. 13, there seems to be a difference of opinion over whether information about who has voted should generally be available. I tend to the view of freedom of information; it would assist political parties with organisation, and might assist improved turnout, allowing political parties to gain information about who may not have been able to vote. It would also assist with providing information about postal or proxy voting in future. Other noble Lords sometimes take the view that perhaps we should withhold the information, as it is private. However, as the electoral register is publicly available and as you can get the list of people who have voted, it would be consistent for the CORE scheme to continue to allow people to know who has voted in any particular election.