My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has just referred to improving the integrity of the ballot. That is precisely what was behind the debates we had some years ago on electoral registration, which I opposed most vigorously, as indeed did some of my noble and honourable friends. The reason was quite simple. We are wasting millions of pounds on electoral registration when in fact we should be doing what the noble Baroness herself said. We should be concentrating our efforts on where the real fraud lies, and that is in selected areas. I remember moving an amendment to do something precisely to that effect in this place. We had a Labour Government at the time but they rejected it. We should not have been wasting money on a national scheme; we should have concentrated our efforts on those areas with a real problem. We knew that where there was a problem, local authorities themselves would ask for additional resources to sort out the issues. Of course that is why we still have some fraud in the system.
I want to go a little wider on this. The noble Baroness referred, I think, to polling cards. Again, there is an inconsistency because she wants to enforce some kind of system to make sure that ID works. Well, why not go the whole hog and have ID cards, which would sort out the whole problem? In those circumstances we could do away with electoral registration. We would go down exactly the same route as I did the other day with the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Young, at the Dispatch Box, because he knows that the ID card is the way to sort this problem out.
I want to turn to something else regarding the nomination form because there has been some discussion about nomination papers. I have always believed that when a candidate stands for public office, there should be a declaration of interest. Why should there not be a full declaration of interest on the nomination form which is published by the local authority, whether it be a candidate for a parish council, Parliament or whatever? The public would then know the interests of the person standing. The problems with these people standing for public office often arise out of the fact that they have an interest which subsequently turns out to have
compromised the positions that they are taking within their respective authorities. I put that to the Minister—I do not expect an answer today. However, let us now consider the whole question of declaration of interests by candidates being published at elections where everyone can see them.
Lastly, I raise the whole question of the voting system. One of the great—I suppose it was minor—contributions I have made in my modest political career was to devise the supplementary vote system. I named it in my house, brought it here, and in the end it was adopted by the Labour Government and is still in operation in mayoral elections. I would like to see an audit on how effective it has been, because there is still some criticism of the supplementary vote. My view is that it works. When you check through the election results over the year in the various authorities, whether that is in police authorities or whatever, and you look at where it has worked, it has worked in some interesting areas. Have the Government done an audit of how it operates, and how effectively?