Electoral Administration Bill

I knew the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, with his great experience, would be the mover behind this particular amendment. I do not know what out-of-control organisation my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours is planning to cap. We are describing a scheme that most noble Lords, at least, find some merit in, from different perspectives. Nonetheless, when I add it all up, it covers many of the points we sought to raise in the consultation paper. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, raise the fundamental point that, if this is an important scheme, as we claim that it is, and if we are all committed to ensuring that our democracy works effectively and that the scheme is a useful addition within that, we need to make sure that it is appropriately funded. The noble Lord rightly referred to the responsibility that falls to local government. Let me say something on the models for the scheme. In the appendices to the CORE consultation paper, we set out the different models that were put together. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister engaged Accenture eDemocracy Services to do a fairly detailed feasibility and options study so we could look at the different approaches available to us. There were six models within the document, which are beautifully illustrated by diagrams. I hope that noble Lords who have not had a chance to look at them will do so. Again, I should be interested to know whether there were particular areas that noble Lords found exciting or whether they thought that we should look at a particular problem or issue that they had outlined. That would be very helpful as the consultation goes on. What we then tried to assess each of the models against particular criteria—whether it worked properly, or functionability, acceptability, how we would implement it and, of course, risk. We ended up with two models, models 4 and 5, which were best thought to achieve the objectives that we had set out. In earlier responses, I indicated the costs assumed within the budgets for those models, depending on the type of implementation model that one went for. We have £10 million available to establish the central system; that does not impinge on local government or provide money to local government. So that is the scheme. I suppose that that addresses my noble friend’s point, because that is the cap—the money available to us. I hope by the time the Bill has passed through the House that we shall have persuaded my noble friend that it is an important aspect of what we are doing.