Electoral System

I agree with my right hon. Friend. I do not wish to be partisan during this debate because I believe absolutely and profoundly that everyone should be encouraged to vote, regardless of the party for which they are going to vote. However, the description that she has given the House suggests to me that such an activity is outwith the guidance to which the Electoral Commission, the police and the main political parties have agreed. I suggest that she might wish to direct the Electoral Commission and the returning officer to that candidate so that the matter can be dealt with appropriately. The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire talked about personal identifiers. The Government have no objection in principle to personal identifiers. He was a little flexible in his description of what the Electoral Commission wanted and what the Conservative party wanted. One of the reasons why we went down the road on postal vote identifiers that we did in the 2006 Act was because that was the only way in which we could get cross-party consensus. The Conservative party did not want the same thing that the Electoral Commission wanted and we could not get consensus across the House on that, which was why we accepted the compromise on postal vote identifiers that was incorporated in the Act. Let me turn to the Council of Europe and its motion on the United Kingdom’s electoral system. The observers to whom the hon. Gentleman referred were here at our invitation. We invited them to come along and observe—[Interruption.] Yes, indeed. We encourage people to come, and we put it in the Act that we would invite people to come and observe our elections. The Council of Europe motion was agreed by a large number of Conservative Members and members of the European Democratic Group. Of course, I look forward to meeting the rapporteurs tomorrow and discussing all the measures that we have put in place to make our system more secure since 2004. However, I will also say to them that we believe that we have made the system as secure as possible and that the 2006 Act demonstrates not only that we welcome observers from all countries and organisations, but that this particular investigation is unwarranted.