Political Parties and Elections Bill

There are two sub-groups in this group of amendments. The first is about the CORE scheme and setting up a body to run that scheme, and the second is perhaps the politically more important problem of individual registration. I should say at the outset that in general terms I support what the Government are doing and have no intention of calling a Division on any of these matters. I am very pleased that the Government have made considerable progress on individual registration. On the matter of who is to run the CORE scheme, I suppose that it might be thought a little awkward that, at a time when all political parties are saying that there are too many quangos, we propose to set up another one. However, I understand the motive for doing so. It is agreed in all parts of the House that the Electoral Commission needs to focus its activities and certainly should not be taking on new ones. My only concern, which I mentioned in an intervention on the Minister, is that the proposal simply sets up the mechanism for transferring the function to a new body, and it does so in general terms, so that the new body could be almost anything—a corporation sole or another public authority. All the good things that the Minister rightly mentioned about the need for security and independence are not provided by the proposal; they are simply his intention. I have a slight worry that yet again what we are putting in statute is simply a mechanism and, in future, some other Government might use that in a way that the current Minister does not intend. I cannot see many sinister uses to which the provision might be put, but I want to put it on the record that the way in which the matter is being dealt with is not ideal. The point about the second, crucial matter of individual registration, which the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) made several times, is that if it is done properly it is not a threat to the comprehensiveness of the register. The Minister also made that point. It increases the integrity of the register and that of the elections themselves. The validity and credibility of democratic elections depend both on the register being comprehensive and on its having a great deal of integrity. If the register is not comprehensive, it is not the electorate who are making a choice but some subset of the electorate. If it is not secure and we cannot be sure that the people whose votes are being counted are electors, that people are not voting more than once or that there is not fraud going on, equally there is a threat to democratic credibility. We need both comprehensiveness and security, and I am pleased that the Minister intends the approach that he has chosen to produce both. I am delighted that the Government have moved such a long way from their starting point, which can be characterised as them saying, "Well, there are risks in doing this, so we shouldn't do it." There are always risks, but the point is to minimise them and move forward in a way that should produce a good result all round. I have two further points to make. On the first, I am sorry that the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) is not here, because he made some serious allegations, at the start of the day, about an unnamed Liberal Democrat council leader. It could have been any one of three people; he did not specify who it was. The hon. Gentleman said that that person somehow took the view, on behalf of my party, that it would be in our interest if the register were not comprehensive. A short reflection on the situation in my constituency should have made the hon. Gentleman realise that that could not possibly be so. The Minister listed the groups of people who, in an exercise of individual registration, are at risk of being removed from the register wrongly, or of not getting on to the register in time, and at the top of that list are students and young people. If Members think about the interests of my party, it will not take them long to realise that a change in the system that removed from the register large numbers of students and young people would not necessarily be to our advantage.