Electoral Administration Bill

I completely recognise that. I was merely saying that, if it was deleted, something that we think quite important in legal proceedings would be taken away. The noble Lord asked a very good question about those preparing to question the validity of an election. I do not think that that matter is particularly clear, so I will write to him and copy the letter to the Committee after checking legal advice. The noble Lord raises a valid point, for which I am grateful. I do not think that he was suggesting through his amendment that we should not have the ability to do what the provision would allow us to do; I recognise that, as he said, he was probing to ensure that the provision will be used appropriately. I will get him the answer to his question, as I do not have the right legal advice here at the moment to be absolutely clear about it. Amendment No. 73 would delete the words,"““such other persons for such other purposes as may be prescribed””." That paragraph would allow us to make specific provision in secondary legislation for circumstances where we think it appropriate to disclose personal identifier information but which are not provided for in paragraphs (a) to (c) of new Section 13E(9). One example would be to deal with a situation where, at the opening of postal ballots, a returning officer decided that a ballot should not be counted perhaps due to a mismatch of personal identifiers on the declaration and on the file. In those circumstances, we think that candidates or agents should be permitted to see the personal identifiers in order to be satisfied that the returning officer’s decision was correct. The provision was considered by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which suggested that it be amended to relate solely to ““electoral purposes””. I am certainly looking at making that change, as the committee raises an important point. I hope that that explains the position behind that provision. On Amendment No. 84, as the noble Baroness said, the electoral registration authority is key. At the moment, we have provision for a county council, a district council, a London borough council or the GLA to make an application. It is quite legitimate to ask why the GLA should be permitted to apply to conduct a registration pilot. We think that you could gain quite a lot from having a pilot spanning an area perhaps as large as the one that the GLA covers to see how the system of personal identifiers would work. I should add that those sorts of pilots are not in our plans. We want to conduct local level pilots to be in a position to decide on national roll-out in 2008. We wanted to take the flexibility in the legislation so that options are available should we decide that it might be better to look across. We would not agree to such a pilot without extensive consultation with whichever authority or authorities were responsible for the registration system in the area. That reflects the importance that we have placed on gaining local political support for pilots generally. I hope that that answers what the noble Lord was seeking in his amendment and that he will be happy to withdraw it.