Political Parties and Elections Bill

I welcome, of course, the thrust of the government amendment to introduce personal identifiers, on the basis that some of us have been arguing for them for a long time. Indeed, they should have been introduced around 2000, when we changed many things, including allowing postal voting to be on demand rather than on the basis of a stated case. Our concerns are now that, although it is coming in better late than never, we would like it to come in sooner if at all possible. On behalf of my noble friend Lord Tyler and myself, I therefore speak to Amendments 125CA and 125CB. We are concerned that this issue needs to be addressed. It has taken so long to get here since 2000 that it is clear that we should have started earlier. From where we are now, however, it may be possible to make quicker progress. I hope that when the Minister responds to Amendments 125CA and 125CB, he will not simply say that it is not possible. All that these amendments say is that, if it is possible, we would like to consider making more rapid progress. That seems as reasonable and as moderate an amendment as you could possibly table on this issue. The issue requires some urgency. There have been discussions about the level of electoral fraud in this country. The truth is that nobody really knows what it is. It is not proper to try to assess the level of fraud simply by looking at convictions, because, as we know, most forms of crime in this country do not result in convictions. It is not a reliable approach. If more people knew how easy it was to commit electoral fraud in our system, there would probably be rather more of it. I have certainly come across some instances in the past. It is probably not very widespread, but any system that makes it possible easily to cheat and abuse the system must be reformed. I shall not go on at length about my own experiences, but I recall the electoral abuses of the Militant Tendency in Liverpool, which I fought from the side of the Liberal Party and which I know the noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton, fought from that of the Labour Party. With all my experience of elections, I could not understand how it was turning out as many votes as it appeared to be doing given the level of their canvass returns—and I like to think that I am quite good at assessing these things. Eventually, I came to the obvious conclusion, confirmed subsequently by those on the Labour Party side who were investigating the tactics of the Militant Tendency, that it could turn out so many votes with such little support was because a lot of people were going around the polling stations casting votes on behalf of people who they knew were not voting. It was very easily done. I am not suggesting that it is widespread, but it is so easy to do that we should move as quickly as we reasonably can to try to address it. With hindsight, those of us who agreed to the extension of postal voting in 2000 probably should not have done so unless we had at the very least a clear and workable timetable for the introduction of the personal identifiers. We now see the whole political system discredited when elections come around, fraud in relation to postal votes and, just occasionally, impersonation at the polling stations. My amendments suggest that if, in 2014 or any year prior to it, the Electoral Commission deems it appropriate, it should be able to make an assessment as to whether we can make more progress. We know that the issues are accuracy and completeness—that is not in dispute. We are saying simply that the Electoral Commission should be able to assess progress on accuracy and completeness and that the Government should pay due regard to its suggestions. To go through two more Westminster general elections without a system of personal identifiers would be quite wrong. We may take a long time over it. Returning officers are hard pressed; they say that it is very difficult to collect those data; we may feel there are problems with both accuracy and completeness. But if we are reasonably satisfied on the principal tests of accuracy and completeness in the register—and the independent arbiter of it must be the Electoral Commission—we should make progress on reforming the system and ending the potential for abuse as rapidly as we can.