My Lords, I must apologise to the House. My head is full of cold, and if I expire half way through my remarks I know that at least I shall have the support of a large number of your Lordships in that. I shall be mercifully short.
I have listened carefully to this interesting debate. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Oates, was wrong when he said in promoting his amendment that the Government were opposed to electronic voting. I trust that they are certainly not opposed in principle; it is more that they have not yet been persuaded of its practicality. That is an important distinction.
The noble Lord, Lord Monks, said that surely any system should be right provided that the balloting method is secure and can be trusted. I think we can all agree with that; the question is what that method should be. Anyone who can remember the remarks I made at Second Reading will know that I am generally in favour of e-voting. Postal balloting itself has scarcely been known for its security in many areas. We simply need to get on with it and find the right practical decision.
The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, has a fundamental flaw. It makes the threshold provisions of subsection (1), which I think are hugely important, consequential on the means of voting. The noble Lord, Lord King, has pointed out the flaw. It is as if the means of voting are more important than the principle of voting itself. I do not think that that is good enough.
The threshold provisions are a manifesto commitment of the Government. I am a little prejudiced—sceptical—about manifesto commitments. We all know how much work goes into manifestos and we all toil away as parties to get to the right sort of provisions. We then ask ourselves how on earth we get anybody to read it and take notice of it. This simple argument—that because a manifesto contains something, it inevitably must pass into law because it has the support of the people—can be stretched too far. When I was responsible for these things in Conservative Central Office back in the 1980s, faced with the problems of trying to get our manifesto publicised and read, we came to the conclusion that the only way to do so was to leak it to the Guardian, where it ended up on the front page. Nevertheless, we are talking about a clear public commitment of the Government, made in a manner that would satisfy the Government of any political persuasion.
I hope and expect the Government will take away the comments that have been made this afternoon in a very serious and sensible fashion, bang them about a bit, get it right and make it work, so that we have the safest possible mechanism to get the maximum turnout in any ballot. By putting the cart before the horse—the mechanism above the principle—the amendment is not helpful and is not the way to go. Although I support many of the details that have been expressed in support of the amendment, I myself cannot support it.