Electoral Administration Bill

I hesitate to have debates about CORE because we can do so on Report. When we discussed this issue previously, we said that there was a possibility that would have to be looked at precisely in the light of what my noble friend is saying—namely, how do you develop a secure system that might enable people to alter their own details in CORE? We talked about bank systems. I used a PIN only as an example. One would have to ensure that it was secure to prevent people from doing what my noble friend described. The provision is but yet a twinkle in our eye in our thinking on CORE, but I felt that it was right to discuss on the first day of Committee the potential and possibilities of CORE. Of course, security would need to be paramount in that regard. I turn to the amendments. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, for her comments, not because, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, I want to prevent any debate—far from it, which is why I did not intervene. I am very conscious that, as we discussed earlier, noble Lords will want to range widely across a whole raft of issues and to make their points from many different perspectives. However, we would do ourselves a greater service if we had a bigger debate on Thursday on the amendments that noble Lords have tabled. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will not mind when I say that I support the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, on the way in which we conduct Committee. Noble Lords from across the Committee have expressed support for Amendment No. 61. We certainly see the benefits of the approach. We are proposing at this stage to test whether there is any problem with this working in practice by incorporating it into other pilot schemes that are part of the Bill. If noble Lords want me to consider the matter further, I am very happy to do so. The Bill’s provisions are wide enough for us to do that, so we will not have to amend the Bill in any way. We agree in principle with the proposal, but, as with anything else, our preference is to test it to make sure that it works properly. I can say that we will incorporate it into the pilots—I hope that that addresses the concerns that the noble Lord has raised. On Amendment No. 69, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, also supported, it is important that the Bill’s provisions do not disfranchise those who do not have a birth certificate, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said. The Bill as it stands does not specify that, for example, a person’s date of birth must match that on their birth certificate—of course, as the noble Lord knows, not all electors will have a birth certificate. The person would be required to state their date of birth and we would expect some kind of evidence, if they did not have a birth certificate, to support the information that they had given. There is no need to amend the Bill. I think that the noble Lord will find that, since 2002, similar provisions have been operating in Northern Ireland very successfully. I think that we have addressed the issue. The legislation does not prevent somebody from using a detail about their date of birth or, as the noble Lord described, from choosing the beginning of a particular year, if they use that more commonly. That, too, will be covered by the Bill. There is no need to amend on that basis. On Amendment No. 71, we do not have specific identifiers, but in particular circumstances the mother’s maiden name, for example, might be added. We have to have the ability to take that requirement out because not everybody will have that information. The Bill is drafted in this way to ensure that we do not disfranchise people who cannot provide a particular piece of personal identification. We need to be able to add other identifiers where appropriate and to recognise that some of those identifiers may not be available to people. I hope that that addresses the point that the noble Lord raised. Amendment No. 72 would delete the provision that will enable us to ensure that those undertaking legal proceedings in relation to elections have access to what we think could be important evidence.