Political Parties and Elections Bill

All that I can say to the hon. Lady is that that is not our experience. The fundamental point—the point of fairness—is very clear. There needs to be a process of voluntary identifiers. It should be tested, and any distorting effects should be corrected. After that, the system should be made compulsory. That is what the Government are proposing. The only disagreement is about the time scale, and how long the process should take. I accept what the Minister says—that there are various important milestones, that we should not rush the process and that we should not take any risks—but as I understand it, in the House of Lords, the proposal was not that the timetable should definitely be shorter. It was simply that, if the Electoral Commission were of the opinion that the move to compulsory registration could take place earlier than 2014-15 without the risks that the Minister mentioned coming into play, there should be a power to allow that to happen. I do not think that anybody was suggesting that the timetable be artificially shortened, or that any risk be taken with the comprehensiveness of the register. All that was suggested was that there be a careful process by which the timetable could be shortened if that turned out to be a safe thing to do. One can imagine circumstances in which that would be the case. A system using the three identifiers that have been suggested—the signature, the national insurance number and the date of birth—might turn out to work well, and there might be no need to use any other identifiers. The problem of the reduction in numbers on the electoral register might turn out to be manageable in a shorter period, with the result that there was no need for any further experiment. At that point, one can imagine the Electoral Commission saying, "This is all working very well. We can take a year or 18 months off the timetable." That was all that was being proposed; nothing of the risky nature that the Minister suggested was put forward. When the move to compulsory registration is made, either through the Government's present scheme or through the scheme as it emerges under a future Government, I do not think that we will be in any danger of taking excessive risks. I have only one other point to make, and it could be made on a whole range of Lords amendments before us. I am slightly worried about the breadth of the order-making power in Lords amendment 38. That order-making power allows the Government to vary the kinds of identifier that might be required—or asked for, in the voluntary part of the process. The Minister said that there might be technological changes that bring in other opportunities. I am worried that those technological changes include ID cards. One of the problems with the ID card scheme is that Ministers say, "We have no intention of bringing it in compulsorily," but it turns out that their version of "voluntary" includes such things as getting a passport, as if the right to travel abroad were simply a matter of discretion or, as the proposal appears to allow, voting. I seek an assurance from the Minister that the Government do not see requiring the use of an ID card as part of a voluntary identifier scheme. With that caveat and with some disagreement with the Government on the absoluteness of their attachment to the 2014-15 timetable, I am content with the amendments proposed by the House of Lords.