Electoral Administration Bill

Amendments Nos. 113 and 114 tabled in my name are linked with this, because they follow the same lines. It is just that the noble Lord, Lord Garden, and I have chosen to try to deal with the issue in slightly different ways. But the burden of the argument is the same: we are both seeking to ensure that service voters who effectively have been disfranchised by being removed from the Representation of the People Act 2000 are once more reinstated into the real world of grown-ups where they are entitled to vote. My amendment is probing in nature. The matter was raised at Second Reading and there is no doubt about what we are trying to do here. It is quite surprising that no amendments have been put down by the Government at this stage of the Bill. This is not something where it was unclear whether it would be raised in discussion. Indeed, it was debated at length in the other place. The Minister over there said that she was ““slightly baffled”” as to how people can be recruited, employed and engaged in the Armed Forces but somehow we cannot get the rocket science working to register them. That was the Minister’s view. Yet no amendments were put down in the other place. Although the noble Baroness may be able to tell me whether some will be tabled now, so far we have seen no appropriate amendments. The Government’s proposed 2006 elections pilot schemes include the possibility of some pilots relating to service or overseas voters. That is why we have lodged our interest in this way. But pilot schemes are hopeless and not what this is all about. This is a known problem. As the noble Lord, Lord Garden, pointed out, everyone jolly well ought to know where each individual member of the Armed Forces is located. A perfectly reasonable system can be applied to ensure that forms are sent out and votes retrieved. My honourable friend Jonathan Djanogly stated in the other place that he had repeatedly warned the Government in the nine months prior to the election that as many as half of all service voters would be disfranchised unless urgent action was taken. Presumably they were disfranchised because no urgent action was taken. He also revealed that a number of senior officers had warned the Government that their men did not have a vote, but again no action was taken. The noble Lord, Lord Garden, has covered the issue very adequately. I just want to say that I support him entirely in questioning why we do not have any amendments to consider. The Department for Constitutional Affairs is probably removed to some degree from taking responsibility for this, but it is time that a little joined-up government were brought to this aspect. I hope that, before we reach Report stage, we shall have some amendments to consider. Whatever happens, it looks as though this Bill will leave this place with those amendments in it.