Electoral Administration Bill

moved Amendment No. 50B:"Page 7, leave out lines 40 to 42." The noble Lord said: I am grateful for that interpretation of my amendment from the Deputy Chairman. When I read my amendment in the Marshalled List, I thought that it was complete gibberish, which I put down to a computer error when I was filling in the amendment form. Therefore, I ask the Committee to bear with my idiosyncrasy and allow me not to press Amendment No. 50B, but to move Amendment No. 50C, which involves a substantive point. Amendments Nos. 50C and 50D question why anonymous registration is basically done on the rolling register system—or a system analogous to the rolling register system—rather than by tying it in with the annual canvass. These amendments suggest that anonymous registration comes to an end at the time of the annual canvass, so they all come off together and all have to be renewed together, which would seem to be a more convenient system to operate and manage. The amendment probes that question and why it is being done as it is. Some of the issues that I wanted to raise under the clause stand part debate have already been discussed in amendments moved previously, so I will not raise them again. I am rather on the sceptical side of the spectrum of opinion on anonymous registration. I certainly would not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton, that it should be extended, for example, to people whose professional activities make them vulnerable to people coming up to them in the street and objecting to them. All local government officers, councillors and all sorts of people might say, ““We want to be anonymous””. It could get rather silly. I understand the problem for very vulnerable individuals who, because of circumstances in their lives, have to be protected from certain people knowing who or where they are. That principle has become fairly well established in recent years with, for example, women’s refuges. However, the principle of anonymous registration should be restricted to the people for whom it is essential. If it comes in and starts to slide so that there are more and more anonymous electors, the whole political, democratic system begins to be put in doubt. We had a system of open voting until the Ballot Act 1872. Privileged people who had a vote went on the hustings and declared who they were voting for. As the franchise extended in the nineteenth century, we rightly moved to a system of secret voting, which is absolutely essential to protect the integrity of the ballot. However, the system of secret voting was based firmly on the principle of an open register of knowing who was entitled to vote and of being able to find out who has voted. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Norton, has doubts about knowing who has voted. It is absolutely crucial in order to check the integrity of elections and to prevent fraud. The more anonymous electors that there are, the more difficult that will be. I am a sceptic. I do not oppose this for those people for whom it is absolutely necessary. But I believe that they are not, and must never become, a very large proportion of the electorate. They must not become even a significant proportion of the electorate. If candidates do not know who, say, 10 per cent or 20 per cent of their voters are, it becomes impossible to conduct a proper, democratic election. Elections are not just about managing the process of polling stations, electoral registers and so on; they are a fundamental part of the democratic system of the country. Candidates must have a basic right to know who the voters are, so that they can persuade them to vote in the way in which they want them to vote. That is crucial to our democracy. I have grave reservations about the whole thing. I recognise that my reservations should be overcome, not least by me, so long as the matter does not get out of hand. Does the Minister have any idea of the number of anonymous electors that she expects? If Members of the Committee accept my idiosyncrasy, I should like not to press Amendment No. 50B, but to move Amendment No. 50C.