Electoral System

The hon. Gentleman may have missed the point that I made just a moment ago, which is that the aim of increasing ease of access to voting is laudable and we would all agree with it, but it is wrong if the Government do not take the parallel measures that are necessary to secure the protection of the system. That is what we have been saying—not just the Conservatives; I include the Liberal Democrats. We have made that point from the outset. Ministers were warned. After the 2003 local election all-postal voting pilots, SOLACE—the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers—wrote to the then Minister, the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford), saying that"““there is increasing concern about electoral fraud…we consider that the current position runs the risk of the whole process being discredited.””"