Political Parties and Elections Bill

Perhaps I may deal with the amendments in the order in which they appear. I am grateful that I had a degree of support on Amendments 128 and 129 from the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Greaves. I was somewhat confused at first by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, who implied at first that the good people of Pendle would not be able to cope with the software systems available to them. One envisaged them in some dark age of information technology where they were still on clockwork computers or whatever, but I am glad to discover that in fact they can cope. In due course, having listened to the Government, we hope that everyone in all areas will be able to cope with these matters, and it will therefore be possible ultimately to move from 20 per cent to 100 per cent verification as appropriate. On the probing Amendment 131, I fully accept the Minister’s criticism that it is badly drafted—appallingly drafted, in fact—if it makes prison a compulsory matter for people who commit such an offence. I also accept the point that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, made, that there are already enough people in prison; the prisons are bursting at the seams, as the noble Lord will know because he knows that the figures go up every month despite everything that the Government do to provide early release. We do not want to start putting more people in prison. I was interested in the point that the noble Lord made about fines at a time of low inflation. It might be low, depending on how you measure it, but most of us who look at these things and at what the Government have done over the past year reckon that we are going to get some fairly high inflation in future. Still, that is not a matter for debate today; we can discuss it on other occasions. On Amendment 132, on the moratorium question, I am grateful for the words that came out of the Minister’s mouth when he said that the Government had no plans to bring in all-postal voting at this stage and had no plans to do so before there was a proper scheme of individual voter registration. One should always say from the Opposition Benches that if you can get the Government to go so far as saying that they currently have no plans, that is probably about as good as you can get. I therefore thank the Minister for that. I want to say a word or two to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, about Amendment 132AB, which I am not planning to move. The reason I decided that I would not move it tonight but might come back to it on Report is that it has certain cost implications, and we all have to be wary of any amendments at this time that have cost implications. I will look at that amendment and possibly bring it back at a later stage, but I give the noble Lord the assurance, to speed up our progress, that I will not be moving it when we get to that part of the Bill. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 128 withdrawn. Amendment 129 not moved.