Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I certainly agree that it is very likely that the number of spoilt ballot papers will increase. We all know that some spoilt ballot papers—a very small proportion—are intentionally spoilt. People write a load of rubbish, which is clearly intentional. However, with the extra complexity, my judgment is that people will think that they have voted one way, but then change their minds and cross something out. Obviously the returning officer will say, ““Well, that's not a valid vote,”” but if there are large numbers of such votes in those polls, which might have large or small turnouts—these are difficult things to judge—that will be unfortunate. I have a concern, in that people have talked about the electorate as if they were a homogenous group, but in certain areas there will be less educational opportunity, inter-generational poverty and a lack of capability to fill in lots of forms, along with under-registration. When those factors are overlaid, it shows a built-in institutionalised discrimination against people who may be poorer or may have had less educational opportunities, and who may therefore be more likely either not to participate or to end up spoiling their ballot papers, and democracy would be the poorer for it. I am sure that the Minister will respond to the point about the financial facilities made available to cope with the extra administration. Clearly there will be an enormous burden on local authorities. I know that the Boundary Commission for Wales has been given £1.9 million for redrawing the boundaries, as opposed to administering the election. Let us remember that only 3 million people live in Wales, yet an extra £1.9 million has been given for starters. When we aggregate that, adding the legal costs and so on, the sum involved will be enormous. Some of these proposals were sold to the media in the name of addressing all these costly MPs buying duck houses, or whatever they are supposed to do, but the reality is that the cost of change will completely dwarf the savings on MPs. It is completely ridiculous. We are spending millions and millions of pounds setting up administrative complexity. Effective democracy will fall on its face, leading to legal challenges and a fall in confidence in the system, all of which is being railroaded through by a party that does not seem to care.