Electoral Administration Bill

I do not dispute that and I agree with the noble Lord about the importance of secrecy, although I resist the temptation to put anything more in the Bill. However, the central point is that as we use different methods of electronically conducting lots of transactions where secrecy is an important issue, so we learn more about how to make systems secure. The noble Lord looks suitably dubious, but I do not suggest for a second that we are there yet. I say simply that we would be failing in our duty to the electorate if we did not consider the possibilities and opportunities for the future, especially as those are important, although not critical, factors in what we are being told about how people view their own voting behaviours. We must bear in mind that we need opportunities to test, but in ways with which the noble Lord and everyone else feels comfortable, knowing that we have cracked the problems. Perhaps we never will, but we must look at these issues seriously. Certainly many institutions around the world are grappling with the problem of how to ensure that technology is being provided in a safe and secure manner—in secret where that is appropriate. Moreover, we should at least be aware of the fact that that is something that our young people, especially, want us to do. For those reasons, I resist the amendments, but I take the points about not trying too many experiments and being clear about the ability to vote. However, I hope that the noble Baroness will recognise that I am not saying that we want to take one route over another, but that we need to have options available to us either to meet particular sets of circumstances or to ensure that we can provide what people will want in future.