No, I am now going to satisfy Opposition Members by setting out my argument, after which I will be happy to give way if they want to comment on it. There is only one element in the amendment made by the House of Lords with which we cannot agree and that is the strategy for roll-out, which prejudges the outcome of the review and irrevocably commits the Secretary of State to press ahead with a strategy for the roll-out of electronic balloting, irrespective of the review’s findings.
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The Opposition may not welcome it, but they will be interested to know that there are many examples of where electronic balloting has been tried, but found not to work, and even of where it has had to be rolled back. The Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy identified 14 countries that have tried internet voting for binding elections, including five countries—not only the UK, but Finland, the USA, the Netherlands and Spain—which either piloted or fully adopted electronic voting and then decided to discontinue its use.