Political Parties and Elections Bill

As I have made clear to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours—and if the noble Baroness looks at my words, she will find that this is the case—I have made no accusation of that sort whatever. All that I have said is that it is very peculiar for the Government to insist on such a hard and fast rule that they write down a date. A word like "2014" does not often appear in statute; it makes it impossible to bring the provision in any earlier. If it is ready to come into effect before that and that is the advice, one should do that. There is nothing wrong with that, if it reduces the amount of electoral fraud. I could go into detail about the amount of electoral fraud that we have seen over the past few years. I could quote from that judge in the Birmingham case, and possibly we will get to that later when we discuss amendments on postal voting; he talked about the fact that what was going on would disgrace a banana republic. I am not going to do that. All that I am saying is that it is very peculiar to find a word such as "2014" in this legislation, when one could say, "at a time when the Electoral Commission thinks it appropriate".