My Lords, I never thought that so many different sorts of opinions would come out of the woodwork. It has been absolutely fascinating. The arguments have been somewhat different from the last two or three times we debated this issue. I just want to comment on them briefly.
As regards the voting list—this is a technical point—my understand is that there is no obvious way in which when we register we can declare that we are Members of this House. Somehow, in some local authorities, the polling clerks are aware of it but, in others, they are not. I am always mystified by that; it is not clear. I have known of people who have not been debarred from voting and could have gone to vote—they did not do so but they could have—simply because it was not obvious to the polling clerks that they were Members of this House.
On my noble friend Lady Quin’s comment about Members of Parliament, again, it is purely a technicality that they cease to be Members of Parliament during the period of an election campaign. Nobody knows about it except for a few nerds like us—sorry, nerds like me. It just means that they are technically not MPs. However, for all practical purposes, of course they are; they still get representations made to them, constituency casework and so on. Even during the election campaign, they cannot just say, “No, I’m not prepared to do it.”