[Relevant documents: The First Joint Report from the Constitutional Affairs and the ODPM: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committees, Session 2004–05, HC 243-I and 243-II, on Electoral Registration, and the Government's response thereto, Cm 6647.]

Order for Second Reading read.

I must inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the reasoned amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

As Members of this House, we are all here because we are elected to represent our constituents under our democratic system. That is an extraordinary privilege, and as we swing through those doors marked "Members Only" we cannot help but feel a sense of pride. However, I bring the Electoral Administration Bill to the House on Second Reading today because all is not well with our democracy. As Members, we need to acknowledge the problems;
as the Government, we need to take action to tackle them.

The legitimacy of our democracy depends on three things—everyone having the right to vote, everyone wanting to vote and no one fiddling the vote. However, we have problems with each of those three legs of the stool. Before I come to the specific measures that I am commending to the House in the Bill, I want to make it clear that the problems of under-registration and low turnout are not evenly spread, so those problems with our democracy are the map of inequality in our society.

We are all familiar with the concept of social exclusion—with communities that suffer from poorer health, lower educational achievement and worse housing—and we all agree that it is the business of Government to act to tackle the problems. However, what is less accepted is that social exclusion has a political dimension—that although the better off are on the register and go out to vote, people in poorer communities are more likely to be left off the register and are less likely to go out to vote.

As the Constitutional Affairs Committee pointed out in its report of March this year, people who are white owner-occupiers in non-metropolitan areas will be on the register. However, about 3 million people—most of whom are poor, council tenants, black and living in inner cities—will not be. In those areas, low registration and low turnout compound each other to create what I call democracy deserts, where it is the norm not to vote. Therefore, the Bill contains measures to ensure that those hard to reach people are included on the electoral register.

My right hon. and learned Friend will be aware of the particular problems in London, where 21 of the 25 constituencies with the highest levels of under-registration are situated. Does the Bill contain special measures for London?

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The Electoral Commission also reported last month, and it found that London was the region with the lowest turnout. As he will be only too well aware, the problem in London is compounded by the fact that we have 32 electoral registration authorities. That results in fragmentation among those whose task it is to deal with the cross-London problem. However, I hope that my hon. Friend will be reassured to hear that I am working with the Mayor of London, the Association of Electoral Administrators, parliamentary colleagues and all the capital's local authorities to try to establish a much better register before the May elections.

On behalf of her party, does the Minister accept any responsibility for the fact that electoral services in the places to which she refers by and large have been run for many years by Labour councils? Precious little has been done to deal with the problem.

I had hoped that this Bill would not become a party political football. We should undertake a shared analysis of the problem and take into consideration the findings of both the Select Committee and the Electoral Commission, as we all have an interest in supporting democracy and tackling inequality. Everyone would like the situation to be better, but today's debate is an opportunity for the House to determine whether the measures in the Bill, and other operational measures, can help to resolve the problem.

The Minister will know that I share her concern and also her commitment to ensuring that many more people vote in areas such as the ones that she and I represent. I want to make a couple of constructive suggestions. First, we should hold a census day every year that has much better publicity than is currently the case, and it should be on a regular date so that people can recognise and remember it. A week before a general election, another day should be set aside as the last day for registering to vote. With huge publicity, that would help to ensure that people go to the polling booth.

Secondly, people who want to vote often go to the wrong polling station and are turned away. They should be allowed to vote there and then, and any other votes cast by them should be discounted. That approach would at least prevent people from feeling that they are not wanted, which can put them off ever trying to vote again.

The hon. Gentleman shares a borough and its electoral registration services with me, and he makes a very important point. The idea of holding a democracy day, which people would know was the last possible date for registering to vote, is not a bad one. We could try it out in London. I hope that he will be part of the London campaign as we need many ideas to tackle the problem that I have outlined. We need to ensure that all registration officers take all the necessary steps to get people registered, and that all of them follow best practice and reach the highest standards.

The Bill introduces a new duty for electoral registration officers to take all necessary steps to ensure comprehensive registers and it sets out what those steps must include. We will extend the registration time until after an election has been called, instead of the current cut-off of six weeks before the election. Once the election campaign is under way and the parties are out and about, people often feel most motivated to get on the register, only to discover that that is not possible. We will allow them to register up to 11 working days before the election. We will require administrators to make public the amount that they spend on electoral services to ensure that we can all see how much each authority is spending.

Ensuring that everyone has the right to vote also means ensuring that everyone who is eligible and registered to vote is then able and encouraged to participate. To promote participation we are requiring that all polling stations are regularly reviewed to ensure that they provide proper access for everyone.

There is a particular problem of young people not being registered—and of not voting even when they are registered.

Will the right hon. and learned Lady reflect that we provide citizenship education for our young people up to the age of 16 and then force them to wait until they are 18 to exercise their vote? Will she consider bringing forward proposals that will allow the voting age to be reduced to 16—[Interruption.]—so as to harness the enthusiasm of 16-year-olds and encourage participation and community cohesion?

The problem of young people not voting is so acute that, with respect, I would say to right hon. and hon. Members who say, "No, that is a bad idea", that we are not in a position to rule out any options. We must be as open-minded as we can possibly be on this issue.

I hope that the provision in the Bill to allow parents to take their children into the polling booth with them will enable parents to show their children how to vote and give them the opportunity to teach their children democracy in practice.

Does the right hon. and learned Lady understand that this is not a mechanism? The failure to register is not because the process is inadequate. Among young people there is a complete disengagement from politics. I commend to her a report produced by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which shows that most people get out of the habit of voting. That does not relate to youth alone—an entire generation feels that this place is entirely alien from it. To re-engage with the members of that generation means reaching into society. It is not a question of mechanism.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Many of us in this place—I and colleagues on both sides of the Chamber—have argued for modernisation of the House. We have not gone far enough. We need completely to reinvent the role of the MP, but that is not the subject of the Bill. Its provisions are important, but they will not change things overnight. However, they are necessary and I commend them to the House.

The Minister makes interesting points about young people. She opened the door a little to the prospect of allowing 16-year-olds to vote. Does she accept that the issue is not that 16 or 17-year-olds are children, but that the law regards them as adults in many different ways, including the right to have children and to get married? Will she explain why the Government are still resistant on bestowing the right to vote to 16 and 17-year-olds who, in many other ways, are already regarded as adults in the eyes of the law?

The hon. Gentleman advances strongly the arguments in favour of changing the voting age and reducing it from 18 to 16. I have said that, as well as pursuing citizenship classes and many other measures, we will try to keep as open a mind as possible. It is not a question of people losing the habit of voting. A generation of people are growing up who have never voted. They have never got into the habit of voting.

We are proposing lowering the age of candidacy from 21 to 18 in line with the change in voting age that has already taken place, opening up the possibility of teenage Members for the first time. Hon. Members have expressed their concern that our system denies some members of our armed forces the right to vote. I acknowledge the representations on this issue of my right hon. Friends the Minister for Industry and the Regions and Mr. George, my hon. Friend Chris Bryant, and the hon. Members for Gosport (Peter Viggers), for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) and for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes). Many other right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House have also brought the issue to my attention.

As a result of those representations, I have met my right hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for the armed forces, and the Electoral Commission has, together with the armed forces, begun a concerted campaign to ensure that every member of the armed forces gets on the register and then gets either a postal vote or a proxy vote. It must be right to make absolutely sure that our servicemen and women, away from their homes on national service, do not thereby lose their right to vote. We shall monitor the situation to ensure that the changes are working, and the first test will be the May 2006 elections.

What estimate have the Government made of the number of service voters who were unable to vote because they did not make it on to the register at the last election? Could the right hon. and learned Lady also explain why, despite the fact that vigorous representations were made a full nine months before the general election, we still went into the election with those who are trying to bring democracy to Iraq unable even to vote in their own country?

The hon. Gentleman has been to the fore in bringing that to our attention and he is right to express frustration. I understand the strength of feeling about the matter. We are determined to monitor the situation and take forward practical measures. One of the problems was that there was no accepted figure for the amount of under-registration in the armed forces. To some extent, people said that there was no problem, but now that it has been acknowledged, it will be tackled and measured to ensure that our proposals work. I hope that we can make progress on that.

The whole House should support the Government's efforts to improve registration, whether for service people or others. In relation to compulsory postal voting, or all-postal voting as opposed to what I gather is now called traditional voting—we all want to maximise the number of people who have the opportunity to vote through being on the register. However, even more important than the poll percentage is the integrity of the ballot and the perception among the mass of the population that the vote is honest and fair. Will my right hon. and learned Friend bear all those points in mind when considering the question of compulsory postal voting, which is, as she knows, extremely controversial?

I hope that I can allay my right hon. Friend's concerns when I reach the next passage in my speech, which is about the security of the vote.

I welcome the Minister's remarks about ensuring that the armed forces have a greater opportunity to vote. However, although I received many complaints from serving soldiers about their inability to vote in the last general election, I received more complaints from serving members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, who were unable to vote due to the logistics of election day in Northern Ireland, when a far greater police presence is required. Will she look into that issue and ensure that every serving police officer is allowed to vote and does not have their vote whipped away at the last moment by some change of direction by a senior officer?

Perhaps I could discuss that with my ministerial colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office. I shall make sure that the hon. Gentleman's point is drawn to their attention.

At a meeting last week, the Minister told me that there had been considerable discussions between her, her Department, the Ministry of Defence and the Electoral Commission and she undertook to write to me with details. I look forward to receiving that communication and hope that I do so before the Bill goes into Committee, as it would be helpful in deciding whether the Bill requires amendment.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the points that he made in our meeting last week. We all need to work together. We should not be incapable of solving the problem—and if the Ministry of Defence, my Department, and the armed forces work together, we really ought to be able to sort it out.

As the Minister will know, originally service personnel filled in a service voter card and were thereafter registered to vote in the constituency they specified, but now an annual update is required to the local registration officer in whichever constituency the person wants to vote, which has caused a problem for the armed forces. What will the Minister do to get around that problem? Can we go back to the old system or have a new one that ensures that our servicemen can vote?

We need to be sure that the concerted efforts to be made by the MOD, the Electoral Commission and the armed forces to get service personnel on to the register make progress. If they do not, we shall have to look into other ways of dealing with the matter. We are absolutely fixed on the objective of getting members of our armed forces on to the register and enabling them to vote. Quite frankly, whatever means we need—whether primary or secondary legislation, or whatever—we must take those measures to make that happen. If a different system for armed forces personnel from the one for people who are not in the armed forces is necessary, we can take that step.

The tendency to sweep names off the register annually, which affects service voters and others, has increased following the changes in service arrangements. Does the right hon. and learned Lady recognise—as we did when the Constitutional Affairs Committee considered the issue—that where the data show that a name should be removed from the register, of course, that should be done, but the automatic removal of names at the year end takes off the register the names of people who have simply failed to get their names on to the form during that year, which leads to under-registration?

I pay tribute to the Select Committee's work under the right hon. Gentleman's leadership. He raises an important issue in the Committee's work and in the House today. People who have voted all their lives find it exasperating if they go down to the polling station and are told that they cannot vote because they are not on the electoral register. They usually protest and say, "How can the council think that I am not there? They sent me a council tax bill yesterday." We should ensure that we strike off people who have moved and so on—it is important that the register is as accurate as possible —but whether we can use data sharing to check who is or is not in an area is something that the Electoral Commission's performance standards can address.

Some electoral registration officers feel that they are not allowed to carry out data checking to tackle either any gap in the register or people whose names may have fallen off the register. To clarify that, we will state in secondary legislation that they have the right to check all the data that they have. We will also consider whether we need secondary legislation to give them access to other data beyond what is held by councils for the purpose of completing the electoral register. Under the Bill, we will require them to check the data that they hold to ensure that their register is as complete as possible.

My concern lies with the quality of electoral registration staff. In general, the staff tended to stay in office for a very long time some years ago. When there was perhaps a man who had worked for 30 years whose assistant had worked for 10 years, the quality of the staff was very high indeed. That length of service has ceased to exist in many electoral registration offices, but the Bill mentions nothing about the training of electoral registration staff. Will the right hon. and learned Lady consider that and tell us how such training might improve our whole electoral system?

Training will be part of the performance standards that the Bill will allow the Electoral Commission to lay down, in consultation with the Secretary of State, and that will require that all electoral administrators reach the highest standards.

I am aware that many colleagues on both sides of the House want to speak. I have been speaking for quite some time already, but I am about to get to the point that concerns many of them very deeply indeed, as it does me—fraud. Therefore, I will try to truncate my comments while doing justice to the many issues in the Bill.

On the important issue of data sources, I welcome what my right hon. and learned Friend says about EROs being able to gain access to data from councils and, perhaps, other Government sources. Will she also consider the possibility of gaining access to other data—for example, from the Post Office, from the utilities and, in areas where housing stock has been transferred, from housing associations and arm's length management organisations? Will she even consider requiring those organisations to provide information to EROs, as well a giving EROs the right to gain access to it?

My hon. Friend makes a number of points about other data that are available that ought to inform the electoral registration officer whether someone should have the right to vote. As I have said, under the Bill councils will have a duty to check their own data to ensure that their register is complete. Beyond that, we will no doubt consider such things further to find out whether the measures that we have already taken are enough, or whether we need to follow my hon. Friend's suggestion and take further steps.

On the question of fraud, every person in this country—no matter what ward or constituency they live in, and no matter what their ethnic background is—is entitled to be sure that they can cast their vote and that the votes will be fairly counted. No one's vote should be stolen and no result should be perverted by fraud—that is a basic right for all. To protect that individual right and to ensure that the public are confident that that is the case, we have a comprehensive plan for electoral security that will tackle the concerns that were graphically identified in Richard Mawrey's judgment on the Birmingham fraud cases. The measures include primary legislation, such as many measures in the Bill; secondary legislation, which I shall bring forward shortly; performance standards to ensure that there is best practice; and extra resources for electoral registration officers. People have a choice about how to vote in this country. Whether they choose to use the ballot box or postal votes, which my right hon. Friend Dr. Strang mentioned, they should be confident that the system is secure.

Is the Minister aware that police in Bradford, which is where I am from, have examined approximately 252 cases of alleged electoral fraud? It would certainly be of great benefit to our part of the world if she would consider introducing individual registration and give a commitment not to hold all-postal ballots again, which have done much to devalue the electoral system.

We will continue to allow people to choose to vote by post if they want to. We want to increase participation. Hon. Members on both sides of the House acknowledge that we do not want to stamp out the choice of postal voting. However, the hon. Gentleman makes important points about fraud and I hope that I will be able to reassure him with further points that I shall make in my speech.

The Minister talks about the choice of using postal voting, but one of the awkward aspects of the system is the fact that people never quite know when their postal votes will arrive. Have the Government considered having a central point in each constituency at which people would be able register their votes in person after postal votes were available? Some people cannot be sure that they will receive their postal vote before they leave on holiday and so on. Such a central point in each constituency at which they could vote in person up until polling day would take away some of the distrust in the postal system.

That is a good idea, although I would have to work out whether it would require primary or secondary legislation, or a performance standard. Several people have expressed concern about the matter, so we will consider the situation.

Several hon. Members:

rose—

I have a bit of a problem because although many hon. Members are making important interventions, I realise that I am taking time away from other speakers. I guess that I had better take only two more interventions and then just plough on.

Will my right hon. and learned Friend be cautious when following suggestions about individual registration and take careful note of the experience in Northern Ireland? There was a substantial drop in numbers on the electoral register there and representations on ways to remedy that were made across a wide part of the political spectrum. Yes, we need an accurate register, but we must ensure that it is comprehensive too. I certainly do not think that we should consider introducing individual registration before many other measures have bedded down to enable us to ensure that the maximum number of people are on the register.

The points that my right hon. Friend makes are absolutely right. It is helpful for the House to hear about his experience as a Northern Ireland Minister.

The Minister cited Birmingham as a high-profile case, but is she aware that there are several smaller cases throughout the country? For example, there was a police investigation in my constituency of Reading, East that proved that fraud had occurred. However, a challenge to the result was impossible because the investigation lasted well beyond the legal time limit in which such a challenge could be made. Should not the time limit be suspended while an active police investigation is taking place?

The Bill will extend the time in which the police can investigate before they prosecute. I do not know whether that addresses the exact point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but it is something along those lines—I will have to write to him.

As with registration, the key to tackling fraud is to give electoral administrators the powers, duties and resources that they need. There will be new electoral fraud offences in the Bill. We have strengthened current offences, created new ones and toughened up penalties. As I said, we are extending the time in which the police can undertake investigations, and in polling stations we will require voters to sign for their ballot paper. People have to sign for a recorded delivery, but they do not currently have to sign for a vote. Doing so will be an extra security measure.

The Bill includes a number of measures to ensure the security of postal voting. We will require administrators to write to everyone who has applied for a postal vote to confirm it. Unless another individual living in someone's house is opening their post they can be confident that their postal vote application is secure. We will require voters to give a reason if they want their postal vote to be redirected to an address different from the one on the electoral register. We will bring forward the deadline for applying for a postal vote to give electoral administrators more time to check applications, and we will make it clear that electoral administrators have the power to check signatures on applications to vote by post. If passed, secondary legislation will be introduced in time for the May 2006 council elections.

In the Bill, we allow local authorities to pilot a scheme making identifiers such as someone's signature or date of birth a condition for inclusion in the electoral register. Hon. Members will know that the Electoral Commission recommended individual registration. We have decided that rather than go straight to a national roll-out, we should test the proposal first. We need to be able to assess in practice the security benefits of such a system, as well as the extent to which it compounds the problem of under-registration.

Under-registration is not a problem in all areas, but it is an acute problem in some. We cannot afford the risk that even more of our poor, black and young people who are eligible to vote are unable to do so because they are left off the register. We need tough anti-fraud measures, and we are taking them. We need to try out individual signatures as a condition for inclusion on the register, and we are doing so. We will proceed in an evidence-based and, I hope, sure-footed way. Individual registration is not a principle, but a means to an end. We will try it out to see whether it works. The principles at stake are security and access and we will not compromise on either.

The Electoral Commission will play a key role in supporting and evaluating the pilots. I expect that local authorities with the greatest fear of fraud such as that of Philip Davies will be the first to volunteer for the pilots. Anticipating the comments of the official Opposition, I believe that before we make significant changes we need to be as sure as possible that they are right. As I have said, we will adopt an evidence-based approach. We will not take risks with the security of the vote, nor are we willing to take risks with the register and people's right to vote. We will evaluate the pilots and the results will be presented to the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs and to the House.

The next elections will be held in May 2006. I am already working closely with local authority chief executives, and I thank them for their work and all their ideas for improving the process, as well as electoral administrators, council leaders, police and, of course, hon. Members. To support their efforts in wards that are at risk of fraud we need to identify the relevant areas and take action. Such areas may be home to minority ethnic communities, but the men and women in those communities have as much right to participation in fair elections as anyone else. Wherever there is a threat of fraud we must take concerted action. Most areas do not have such fears, but where there is a history, or a new threat, of fraud we will back the individuals taking action at the local level. The Bill will give electoral registration officers a power to promote participation in elections to achieve higher turnout, and it will provide a ring-fenced fund.

Everything in the Bill is underpinned by provisions for performance standards for electoral services, which will be set and monitored by the Electoral Commission, after consultations with the Secretary of State, to promote best practice. To enable them to carry out their greater responsibilities and exercise their wider powers and duties, we are allocating £17 million to local authorities over the next two years.

I know that Sir Patrick Cormack will attempt to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, to make his proposals about the legal changes that are required when a candidate dies between nomination and election day. He is a senior and experienced Member of the House who has had more reason and more time to think about that than anyone else, so I am grateful to him for being prepared to sort the matter out, and I am making parliamentary drafting available to him so that he can table his proposals by way of amendments in Committee.

As to the process, we will be seeking to deal with part of the Committee stage of the Bill on the Floor of the House. As this debate has demonstrated, the issue is one in which many Members of the House have a keen interest and a great deal of experience. The Bill is not a virility test for the Government or party politics. It is about improving democracy and tackling inequality. I will listen, as will my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, to the views of Members in all parts of the House. If hon. Members from whichever part of the House come forward with proposals of merit backed by reasoned arguments, we will accept their amendments.

I hope that when the measure comes to be considered in another place there will be an acknowledgement that we have, in this elected House, given the Electoral Administration Bill the careful, impartial scrutiny that a measure reforming our democracy deserves. I commend the Bill to the House.

I beg to move,

That this House
declines to give a Second Reading to the Electoral Administration Bill because it fails to introduce necessary and sufficient measures to restore public confidence and integrity in the electoral system, owing to the absence from the Bill of the tried and tested Northern Ireland system of individual registration;
because it lowers the threshold for lost Parliamentary deposits, which will assist extremists like the British National Party in spreading racist propaganda;
because it perpetuates the flawed system of all-postal voting and fails to provide for the proper Parliamentary scrutiny of election pilot schemes;
and because it exposes the Government's continuing preoccupation with electoral modernisation that has undermined the UK's reputation for free and fair elections.

Nobody could present the measures proposed by my hon. Friend Sir Patrick Cormack better than he doubtless will. We stand behind his proposals, but I shall not even attempt to explain them.

Given what has happened to our electoral process, no Opposition politician could fail to point out that when Labour was elected in 1997 the promise was to restore trust in the political process and to introduce a new politics. Since then, the electoral system has been tinkered with on many occasions, often for partisan advantage. The Government have opened the door to an older form of politics, which was riven with abuse and corruption and which all of us were glad ended more than 100 years ago.

Electoral law was the most unexciting and staid corner of the Home Office until the Government turned their beady eye on the subject. Since then responsibility has changed three times to three Departments, we have had six Acts of Parliament—the Bill would be the seventh—and we have ended up with a system that has led public opinion and confidence in the electoral system to collapse and compromised the perceived integrity of Britain's once proud electoral system. There is no question that what has happened is wrong. Something substantial needs to be done, but the Bill is inadequate. We needed a strong sword to defend our democracy and what we have is a damp lettuce leaf.

I shall start with the proposals for pilot schemes for collecting personal identifiers. The introduction of postal voting on demand in 2000 was a welcome step. It allows electors to apply for a postal vote without any specific reason. It has led to an upsurge in postal voting and we do not oppose that at all. However, the experience has shown that we need firm anti-fraud measures. Things have got to a point where we have had international election observers from as far away as the Ukraine and Serbia, those well-known beacons of democracy, coming to the United Kingdom to tell us how to run our system. They warned that the issue of postal voting has raised lingering doubts about this country's ability to regulate elections securely. They went on to suggest a way to overcome the problem—individual voter registration—for which the Government's own Electoral Commission and MPs from across the political spectrum have also called.

The Government's proposal for a few local authority pilots is wholly insufficient. There is no need for pilots—Northern Ireland, a nation in itself, has trialled the system extensively over a number of years—which are simply a delaying tactic. Conservatives want to see the Northern Ireland scheme introduced in Great Britain, with national insurance numbers used to verify registrations, which is essential to ensure an accurate register and to curtail postal vote fraud. The Government do not like the use of national insurance numbers and initially opposed their use in Northern Ireland. It is, however, worth reminding them that after pressure in the other place by Conservatives and Unionists, the late Lord Williams helped to introduce their use in Northern Ireland.

The electoral registration officer for Northern Ireland, Denis Stanley, with whom I have discussed the matter, told me that he was initially concerned that the use of national insurance numbers might have an adverse effect on registration, but his fears have been allayed. In a road to Damascus conversion, even the Northern Ireland Office now admits that national insurance numbers were

"central to enhancing the accuracy of, and confidence in, the electoral register in Northern Ireland".

The dead were voting in Northern Ireland, and now they are not. Some 94 per cent. of the people in the census were registered to vote before the change, and the figure is now well ahead of the registration level in many inner-city areas, which is an issue that the Minister has discussed.

Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House about the initial drop in voter registration as a result of the introduction of the single signature in Northern Ireland and the number of successful prosecutions for postal ballot fraud in the past few years?

The fall in the number of people registered was about 120,000. It is often claimed that that shows that people who should have been on the register were no longer on it. However, the Electoral Commission, which has looked into the matter, and Denis Stanley, the electoral registration officer for Northern Ireland, do not say that. They say that the single signature has improved the accuracy of the register.

The level of registration in Northern Ireland is high compared with the areas about which the Minister, Chris Ruane and I are concerned. Labour councils in inner-city areas have not done anything to address the problem of under-registration, which requires an active campaign and proper canvassing, and I welcome the fact that the Minister now talks about those things.

I welcome the idea of data matching and checking, which the Select Committee has rightly suggested. However, let us not kid ourselves that everybody has been working hard and busting a gut trying to get people to register in the inner cities, because they have not.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the electoral registration officer for Northern Ireland put 70,000 electors back on the register in order to get the register up to the 94 per cent. figure, after it became clear that only 83 per cent. of the people on the census were registered in Northern Ireland? The electoral registration officer made that decision because there was a crisis in registration that had to be addressed.

The hon. Gentleman has not quite got the figures right, but I will not quibble.

It is possible to introduce two changes at once, and the introduction of individual registration should be accompanied by an active campaign involving the materials mentioned by Mr. Betts in order to capture the true position by obtaining an accurate register. It can be done, and it should be done.

It is fairly well established in Northern Ireland that the initial drop in the register was a result of the removal of fictitious electors. However, in the subsequent year there was a further drop of, I believe, 70,000, which has been mentioned. The Government will face a conundrum, as there is a tension between having an accurate register and fraud. The more identifiers one requires and the more difficult one makes it for people to register, the fewer will register.

I agree that there is more to this than a simple solution—we need a strategic approach that involves a range of measures. I understand from my visit to Northern Ireland that there is now much more confidence in the accuracy of the register. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that extra measures are being suggested further to improve the system to ensure that people do not drop off the roll every year. That need not happen if the register is effective, accurate and well canvassed. The proposals for Northern Ireland are probably a good way forward, although the hon. Gentleman might want to query points of detail.

Individual voter registration and an identifier such as the national insurance number are required because without them there is no way of checking that the person exists. I shall give an example from New Zealand, which has a system similar to the one that we would end up with under these proposals. Last month, it was reported in The New Zealand Herald that a disgruntled resident had decided to register his pet Jack Russell, Toby, on the electoral roll as a protest against development laws. He gave his dog the full name of Toby Russell Rhodes and his occupation as rodent exterminator. He signed with a squiggle using the dog's paw and then put a paw mark, just to make the point. He gave Toby the birth date of 4 July 1977, which would equate to his age in human years; he is really four years old. Toby was signed up to the electoral roll and duly received his voter's card. That could happen under the system that the Government suggest—and he could have a postal vote, to boot. Not one of their proposals really tackles the problem with the register.

This is not just about what international observers and the Electoral Commission have said. In the draft guidance, even the Government accept that when the good old identity card comes along there may be scope to use it to do what I am suggesting needs to be done using the national insurance number.

As the electoral commissioner observed earlier this year regarding the Government's claims that concerns over fraud are not justified by events:

"no serious independent investigation was ever carried out into postal vote fraud. In short, there is likely to be no evidence of fraud, if you do not look for it. Especially if a policy decision is made not to look for it."

He says that the Government have simply put their head in the sand.

The hon. Gentleman knows that my colleagues and I agree with him about voter registration but not about the use of the national insurance number. He gave the House to understand that the Electoral Commission supported that, but I do not believe that it did. It supported individual registration, but not the use of the national insurance number as an identifier.

The Electoral Commission and international observers support individual voter registration. It is true that the Electoral Commission has said that as a minimum it would want signatures and dates of birth, and has not specified national insurance numbers. I am arguing for that, passionately and effectively, I hope. If we do not have some independent way of verifying that such people exist we will fall short as regards security.

The Minister has recently talked a great deal about democracy deserts created by under-registration.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are substantially more national insurance cards in circulation than there are people who exist for employment purposes?

One could make two specific points about national insurance numbers. First, a small number of people do not have one. Secondly, when people die, they remain flagged up on the national insurance computer so that their widows can continue to receive pensions. The hon. Gentleman is therefore right to suggest that the system would not be perfect, but what is perfect in this world? However, it would take matters a good deal further. It has been tried in Northern Ireland and the people who administer it there say that it works well. Given the extent to which public confidence has been damaged by what has happened in this country, surely we should introduce a system that everybody agrees meets the challenge. That is where the Minister fails.

Over-registration is a serious matter. Although it is regrettable when a person does not take up the right to vote—some people choose not to do so but we would all like people to take up the right—we can tackle the problem and I would like us to do that. However, over-registration is a warning sign of the scope for corruption and electoral malpractice. When the Government give powers to electoral registration officers to do more, I hope that they will clearly include the duty to ensure that people who are not entitled to vote come off the register. A democracy desert is a place not only where not everybody votes but where people who should not be able to vote do so. There is no democracy in those circumstances.

I heard the Minister's comments about service voters. She is clearly examining the matter, but I stress that it is urgent. It is wrong and unacceptable that people who are serving their country cannot vote. Nothing in the Bill will improve the position. Is it possible for the Minister to find some way of tackling the problem during the Bill's passage? It is a failing in the measure if nothing is done to provide a mechanism whereby our service personnel are assured of their vote. I would also like a provision to encourage overseas voters because they are entitled to vote and there appears to be nothing for them in the measure.

The Government may suggest that the reasoned amendment is an attempt to act against the anti-fraud provisions. I do not believe that they go far enough. The Bill makes an offence of providing false information when applying for a postal vote. That is a tiny tightening of the law. Let us not forget that the Representation of the People Act 1983 already makes it an offence to vote fraudulently by post or to attempt to do that. The Bill extends time limits for prosecutions but we should not forget the comments of the election court in Birmingham:

"No sanctions are of any real value, however, unless elections can be policed. As became very apparent in the trial of these Petitions, in real terms the policing of electoral fraud is minimal to the point of being almost non-existent."

Other changes are worth while—for example, the requirement of a signature at the polling station and the provision for creating a marked register for postal votes. One would not argue with those provisions. However, the genuine alternatives are individual registration with national insurance numbers and scrapping postal voting.

The hon. Gentleman listed the groups and individuals whom he believed had the right to vote. What is the Conservative party's position on giving 16 and 17-year-olds the vote? Organisations such as the Electoral Reform Society and the highly effective UK Youth Parliament have a cast-iron case on the basis that, if people are old enough to pay tax and do the many other things that they can do at 16 and 17, it is a basic human right to allow them to vote.

I am a great supporter of the Youth Parliament but the polls that I have seen suggest that young people are not asking for the lowering of the voting age. We do not therefore support that. It is right to have younger candidates—if people can vote at 18, why should not they stand for Parliament? However, the case for lowering the voting age needs to be proven. The Liberal Democrats have some odd ideas about ages. I understand that they want to introduce drinking at 16. That beggars belief when we have such a problem with binge drinking.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I must get on.

Briefly?

No. It was enjoyable, but enough is enough.

The polling station and the traditional ballot box should remain the foundation of our democracy, and citizens must always have the choice to vote in that way. Let us have an assurance from the Minister today that compulsory all-postal voting will end.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Not at the moment.

The pilot schemes are becoming something of an abuse. When they were originally proposed in 2000, it seemed right to try out some of these ideas, and we were prepared to accept the schemes. However, Ministers are setting up pilot schemes year after year. We have reached the point, particularly as the schemes are not monitored by this place, at which this has become an abuse. If Ministers want to undertake pilot schemes, they should at the very least announce them to the House. They do not do so at present. I suggest that they should go further, and that we should have a right to approve those schemes. Otherwise, this could go on for ever, with Ministers choosing the battlefield and deciding how an election is to be conducted in a particular place. That is dangerous.

If the Minister wants to increase the turnout at an election, she must recognise the role of political parties, rather than merely tinkering with the electoral system. The Bill sends out some wrong signals. The long-delayed creation of an electronic electoral register is welcome, but we need solid assurances that the information that political parties currently receive from local authorities, and the additional information that will become available through the central data stream, will be made fully available to political parties, without reservation.

The Government are going to allow independent candidates to use almost whatever description they choose about themselves. However, it would be wrong to allow that while restricting the descriptions that political parties can use. Someone could stand as the Sedgefield independent candidate but not as the Sedgefield Labour candidate, and that would be wrong. Will the Minister look again at that proposal?

The rules governing candidates' expenses are also to be changed. A four-month rule will be introduced, replacing the start of poll as the beginning point for election expenses. That will take us back to prospective parliamentary candidates and parliamentary spokesmen circumventing the rules, which we really cannot have. There is also to be a measure to reduce the percentage of votes that a candidate must poll in order not to forfeit their deposit, from 5 per cent. to 2 per cent. I have great worries about that, because it will help extremists such as the British National party.

Is my hon. Friend aware that, if that rule had been introduced before the last election, the BNP would have saved its deposit in Shipley, whereas in fact it lost it? In cities such as Bradford, support for the BNP is a scourge, fuelled by the political correctness that we have seen throughout the country. Does my hon. Friend agree that this measure will succeed only in giving money back to the BNP so that it can peddle its filth in places such as Bradford?

That is a serious worry. If this proposal were agreed, the BNP would probably be able to stand in about 73 more constituencies for the same amount of money. The freepost mailing is worth about £15,000, so it does not require rocket science to work out that the measure would be giving a benefit worth about £1 million to the BNP. Surely there should be some checks and balances in place to prevent candidates who do not have substantial public support from gaining such an advantage at the expense of the hard-pressed taxpayer. This measure is a change too far, and I hope that the Minister will think again. It beggars belief that the Labour party would want to support a proposal that would help such extreme individuals.

That said, I ought to mention two or three proposals that we do support, apart from those of my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire. It is right that victims of domestic violence and members of the armed forces who are under threat should be able to register anonymously. We also like the idea of lowering the age for candidates; that was something that we suggested. There is a spirit of co-operation to that extent.—[Interruption.] I mentioned a few others along the way.

Finally, may I say something about the issue of prisoners voting? This should be debated in Parliament, and the recent European Court of Human Rights ruling is an affront to the House. The Court argued that the fact that Parliament had not divided on the issue was a justification for foreign judges overruling British law.

The prohibition on convicted burglars, muggers, rapists and murderers having the right to vote reflects, I believe, our political, social and cultural values in the United Kingdom. We believe that a jail sentence—by definition, a serious punishment—involves the temporary loss of freedom, including the right to vote. In fact, the last time this matter was discussed here, in 1999, it was not divided on because it was thought that we all agreed about it. I hope that Parliament will be given the opportunity to make that point clear to our friends overseas, because this Parliament should be able to decide such matters.

The Government have an opportunity with the Bill to restore the cross-party consensus on electoral law. They can restore the trust, integrity and confidence in the British electoral system, but the Bill is a wasted opportunity. We need bold action. In the 21st century, we perhaps need even a new politics, but we do not need a return to the older politics of corrupt elections, which we put behind us a century ago. That must not be allowed to happen; we deserve a better Bill than this.

I remind all right hon. and hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a 12-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.

Let me say first that this is a truly magnificent place, and it is a great honour to represent my constituents here within. May I place on record my appreciation, as the new boy in this place, for the support and warmth that I have received from right hon. and hon. Members, from both sides of the House, which is very much appreciated? In particular, I want to place on record the advice that I have received about this, my maiden speech: all of it has been totally contradictory, but it has been very helpful.

This is a place that I would not want to be in, if that meant that Robin Cook was still alive. Robin Cook was described by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend Mr. Brown, as the outstanding parliamentarian of his generation. In this place, Robin was known for his intellect, his wit and his drive. I knew him, as his election agent since 1982, for the work that he did in his constituency. Throughout Livingston, there are many monuments to the work that Robin Cook did for the people of Livingston and West Lothian: St. John's hospital, the rail link between Bathgate and Edinburgh, new schools and new colleges of education—all tributes to the great work that Robin did.

What was striking, and what marked Robin out as an outstanding politician, was the work that he did for ordinary people in his constituency. It was humbling, during the by-election, to go to door after door and meet people on whose behalf Robin had intervened, or people who had met him or seen him at gala days.

Before the election in May, we estimated that Robin had been involved with more than 40,000 constituents and their families in the Livingston area in his relatively short time as an MP there. He once told me that he had met many, many wealthy people in his life and that he had been to many wealthy places, but that he had never encountered the wealth of community that so much prevailed in many parts of the constituency, which I now have the great honour to represent.

One member of staff used to call us the odd couple. Right hon. and hon. Members might remember the film of the same name. There were two central characters: one was a witty, charismatic individual who played a mean hand of poker; the other was an obsessive individual who would rewrite his introductory leaflet 27 times to ensure that there were no split infinitives. Well, the odd couple are no more, and I will miss him terribly. His tragic death on 5 August is not just a loss to this place but a great loss to the constituency of Livingston and to West Lothian. Robin and I were not only close personally but politically. On the major issues of the day—apart from proportional representation—whether full employment, social inclusion, dignity for our pensioners or Iraq, we were as one.

I have the great honour to represent in this place the village and the community in which I was born and brought up. Prior to becoming a full-time union official with the Confederation of Health Service Employees, I worked in primary care psychiatry, which I recognise is a skill that could be of use in this place. It was a pleasure, during the by-election, to meet one of my constituents, who, when I asked if she was voting Labour, told me that, in the past, she had always voted for the Scottish National party, but this time she would vote for Labour, because I used to work in the health centre, and when her man was "off his heid", I was "the man who came up and jagged him and made him better." Not many right hon. and hon. Members will have had such an endorsement from their constituency. Gregor Poynton, who was working hard on my campaign, chapped a door on the night before the by-election, and said to a man who came to the door, "Would you like to meet Jim Devine, the Labour party candidate?" The man said to him, "I'm sorry, mate, there's nobody in." It is a unique constituency.

In fact, the constituency is the fastest growing part of Scotland. The new town of Livingston was established in 1965. We have a football team in the Scottish premier league. Sadly, it is propping up the premier league at the moment, but we will not be following our friends to the east and sacking our manager. I am sure that we will be moving up the league very quickly.

I have famous, great predecessors—not only Robin but Tam Dalyell, the former Father of the House, represented my constituency, as did Mannie Shinwell. Probably our greatest claim to fame, however, is the work of James "Paraffin" Young, who in Addiewell in 1866 delivered the first shale mine, and extracted oil from shale for the very first time. I can therefore proudly boast that I am the Member with the first oilfield in the world in his constituency.

I have a variety of interests. I hope that this place follows the lead of the Scottish Parliament and the Irish Dail in banning smoking in public places. That will make a major contribution, not just to the well-being of individuals and bar staff but to the population as a whole. I have a particular interest, as a former full-time union official with Unison, in industrial relations. I want to share with this place a modern, industrial relations practice model in which I was involved within the Scottish health service—partnership working. Partnership working and staff governance were given the same legal status as clinical and financial governance. I also want to participate in the campaign by ASLEF to get freight off our roads and on to rail.

I was warned, however, that one of the things that I would have to do is refer to this debate, and I am obviously happy to do so. The turnout for the by-election in which I was elected was 38 per cent. The turnout in another by-election in Scotland that day was 32 per cent. Not too long ago, if a constituency delivered less than 70 per cent. in a by-election or in a general election, questions would be asked. This is not just a Scottish problem. The very able Scottish journalist, Ian McWhitter, pointed out in an article recently that in Leeds in 1999, the turnout was 19 per cent., in Tottenham in 2000, the turnout was 25 per cent., and in Kensington and Chelsea in 1999, the turnout was 29 per cent. It is not a Scottish problem, a rich problem, a poor problem, a Tory problem or a Labour problem. It is a problem for all of us collectively.

I have ideas on how we should improve turnout. From my experience in the by-election, one idea is about political honesty and political debate. I had to deal with the party of independence that would discuss everything bar independence. The Liberal Democrats launched a petition in the by-election against the closure of the local hospital. The local hospital, St. John's, is not under threat and will not close—I can give assurances to the Liberal Democrats on that. What was striking about their campaign was that they blamed the Scottish Executive for causing the closure—a Scottish Executive of which they are a member. This dishonesty alienates voters, and that is why people do not participate in the political process.

We must all learn from one another. I see my hon. Friend Mr. Murphy sitting on the Front Bench. One of my colleagues, who lives in his constituency, tells me that if he raises a complaint with him, he ends up with 12 letters, six phone calls and three visits. When I shared that information last night with my hon. Friend, he told me that that was false—it is 24 letters, 12 phone calls and six visits.

As I said at the start of my speech, being in this place is a great honour. I am very proud that my constituents elected me here. I recognise that I have big shoes to fill, and I hope that I can do so.

May I say what a pleasure it is to follow Mr. Devine, who made a remarkably fluent and assured maiden speech? He is absolutely right that his predecessor, Robin Cook, can only be described as a great parliamentarian, whom many of us will miss as a colleague and friend. It is a difficult to act to follow, which he appreciates, but he has made a very good start. I just hope for his sake that the hospital is still open in four years' time—many are not.

I have no illusions that there may be contained excitement outside this place about our proceedings this evening, but the Bill is extremely important. It deals with a critical element of our democracy—our voting system. I welcome the Bill. It is a modest Bill, which has gross omissions that I shall seek to point out, but what it does contain is welcome. I must say to Mr. Heald that I am amazed that even the modern, opportunistic Conservative party can find any reason to decline to give a Second Reading to a Bill that contains measures that we all want introduced, and to deprive Parliament of the vehicle for further such measures. It is a tactical mistake. I hope that he will reconsider that position later, as it is important that we move forward as a united House as far as possible in seeking to reduce fraud and maintain the integrity of the voting system.

I am not recanting for a minute. Does not the hon. Gentleman accept that we only have this poor Bill because of the noise made from the Conservative Benches, and to be fair, from the Liberal Democrats, making clear just how appalling the levels of fraud and corruption, or the risk of those, were? Clearly, if the Bill is not good enough, of course we put down a reasoned amendment.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman up to a point. Of course our debates on the earlier legislation highlighted the lack of rigour on the Government's part in ensuring that our voting system maintained the integrity for which we hoped. I disagree with him, however, about the reasoned amendment. A reasoned amendment simply is not the right way in which to deal with omissions in a Bill of which we approve in all other respects.

I still hope that the hon. Gentleman will reconsider, because we undoubtedly need to re-establish, as far as possible, consensus—in the House and beyond—on what we should do to make our voting system better. That is urgent. The hon. Member for Livingston mentioned the appalling—I use the word advisedly—turnout in a key parliamentary by-election. In such circumstances there should not be such a low turnout, but we know that it is replicated in both parliamentary and local elections throughout the country time and again.

That puts our democratic system at risk. I am not being alarmist or apocalyptic. We need a process of democratic renewal across a wide front, including parliamentary as well as electoral reform. We must make a start. The Minister of State said that she wanted to listen to what Members had to say, and—rightly—that it was for the elected House to deal with a Bill concerned with elections in the proper way. That is, I must say, a marked improvement on the Government's performance during the passage of the European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Act 2004, which set a new nadir for Government conduct in such circumstances. Measures were forced through in the face of opposition not just from every other party represented in the House but from the Electoral Commission, which had been appointed as an independent voice to advise the Government. I hope that those days are over, and that the Government now intend to proceed much more constructively.

We should also recognise that there is, understandably, a tension between the integrity of the register and the wish for as many voters as possible to be included in it. We demand three things from a voting system. We want the register to be as comprehensive as possible, we want as many as possible of those registered to vote to be encouraged to exercise their right, and we want those who are not entitled to vote—or those who wish to abuse their vote—to be deterred effectively from doing so.

I do not think it is possible to deal with one of those requirements without dealing with the others. We need to establish a balance. That is why I welcome the work done not just by the Electoral Commission, to which I give credit, but by bodies such as the Electoral Reform Society and also my right hon. Friend Mr. Beith, Chairman of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, who has temporarily left the Chamber. I hope that we can reduce fraud and increase registration and turnout without any part of the equation being detrimental to any other part.

The Government were right to try to increase turnout in the 2004 European elections by means of all-out postal votes, although obviously there were problems. Does the hon. Gentleman agree, though, that we cannot just walk away from absent votes? Should we not promote the availability and take-up of postal votes much more in constituencies? Constituencies with similar social and demographic profiles have very different rates of registration, which suggests that in some areas, at least, much more work needs to be done by the electoral registration authorities.

I agree with the last contention. I welcome a couple of suggestions made earlier by my hon. Friend Simon Hughes about how we might increase registration and participation.

As for experiments of the kind that we saw at the time of the European elections, I have no problem with the use of novel forms of voting provided that measures to combat fraud are in place beforehand. The difficulty—which we pointed out repeatedly to the Government at the time—was that while they wanted to increase turnout, they were not prepared to establish measures to maintain the integrity of the ballot.

The Birmingham judgments, with which Members will be familiar, do not relate directly to those elections, but they are damning. A senior judge, Richard Mawrey, quoted the Government in his obiter dicta:

"There are no proposals to change the rules governing election procedures for the next election, including those for postal voting. The systems already in place to deal with the allegations of electoral fraud are clearly working."

What complacency on the Government's part, in the face of clear evidence that the systems were not working. Richard Mawrey commented:

"Anybody who has sat through the case I have just tried and listened to evidence of electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic would find this statement surprising. To assert that 'the systems already in place to deal with the allegations of electoral fraud are clearly working' indicates a state not simply of complacency but of denial."

I believe that, at that point, the Government were in denial, but I welcome the Minister of State's current view. She has clearly distanced herself from the earlier position, and we are making progress.

There are omissions from the Bill. The big one is the issue of personal identifiers and individual registration—in fact, two issues which, although not identical, are related. Here we come to the question of balance. What personal identifiers are appropriate to deter fraudsters, while not tipping the balance by reducing the incidence of registration or voting? That is the crucial equilibrium that we must achieve.

I believe that the Government have fallen on one side of that balance. We will seek to persuade them in Committee, but they have not yet been prepared to accept the wider palette of personal identifiers to reduce fraud. I believe that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire has fallen on the other side, because I do not believe that national insurance numbers constitute a good personal identifier. I think that such an arrangement would deter many people. I frankly admit that I do not know my national insurance number. If I were asked to give it, I would not be able to, and I think that many others are in the same position. I know of no bank or financial institution that uses national insurance numbers as a personal identifier. Moreover, we know that national insurance numbers are occasionally duplicated, that—as the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire accepted—they are sometimes retained after a person is deceased, and that they are known by people other than those to whom they belong. Employers, for example, know the insurance numbers of their employees—although they probably do not know their mothers' maiden names, or other identifiers that are used on the telephone by people contacting their banks.

What I do accept is that we need to do better than we are doing now. I see the Government edging towards a conclusion that I consider inescapable: that we need personal identifiers, especially in the case of postal ballots when people do not present themselves at polling stations in person.

An alternative to the conundrum described by the hon. Gentleman would be a more restricted form of postal voting.

That would be one solution, but I would rather find a better way of maintaining the integrity of the postal vote. I do not want to reduce turnout, I do not want to reduce registration, and I do want to recognise that people lead vastly more complicated lives than they used to and are often away from their homes on the Thursdays that we choose to use as polling day. Another solution might be voting at weekends. There are a number of possible answers, but I think we should strive to find a better way of preventing fraud.

The hon. Gentleman spoke of the need to strike a balance, and of the significant fall in registration in Northern Ireland. Does he accept that we should conduct pilots to establish just how that balance should operate? Does he also accept that before introducing individual registration, we should try to boost the overall level of registration?

We certainly ought to increase the overall level of registration, but I do not accept that we need pilots for what is a rather simple concept: whether people sign and provide a personal identifier before getting the vote. This is not a complicated issue on which we need to take a huge amount of evidence. Were we to opt for complex personal identifiers that people could not reasonably be expected to have in their mind, there would be an argument for trialling them.

I point out to Mr. Love that this is an urgent issue. If we pursue the Government's suggested pilot scheme, which will inevitably take time to evaluate, we will get to another general election without proper measures in place to prevent postal ballot fraud. To do that would be to serve democracy and the people of this country very ill indeed.

rose—

I give way for the last time and then I must make progress.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. According to the Electoral Commission, 3.5 million to 4 million people are currently unregistered. Does he believe that a personal identifier involving a single signature will discourage or encourage those people to register?

My personal opinion is that it will do neither. I do not believe—the Government seem also to take this view—that people will be discouraged by having to put a signature on a piece of paper.

I do not believe that a pilot is the way forward, and I certainly do not believe that a few authorities opting into a pilot would constitute any form of controlled experiment. If the Government want to run a pilot, let them do so properly. Let us have pilots in one or more regions. Local authorities should not be given the choice to opt in or out; if they are, the top-performing ones will opt in and those that do not perform very well will not bother. Let the Government, with the help of the Electoral Commission, identify regions in which it would be sensible to—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No. I am aware that I have taken up the time of other Members who want to make speeches.

Let us deal with this issue to a sensible time scale, and on a scale that provides us with the results that the Government apparently want. That is the right way forward, as I shall try to persuade the Government in Committee.

The Government have got themselves in a terrible mess on the issue of the expenses period. A four-month period for election expenses running before a fixed-term election is fine, because everybody knows where they stand. Of course, it is true that we always assume that county council elections will fall on the same date every four years, because that has been the pattern over the past few years, but the fact remains that having such a four-month period before an election whose date has yet to be determined gives rise to all sorts of problems.

I say candidly to the Government that if they really want this provision to work, they must increase the limit to allow for a full four-month campaign during the election period, rather than a one-month campaign. But doing so will raise the threshold to the point where the process will be open to the abuse that we are theoretically trying to reduce. Doing so will increase instances of abuse of the kind that we used to have—instances of the old formulations being used to enable people to pretend that they are not candidates, when everyone knows perfectly well that they are. It would be much more sensible to revisit this matter and to consider the consequences.

I now want to say something that some Members will not find so conducive. In this context, we also need to look at central parties' spending in local constituencies. A great deal of abuse is going on in this regard—on the part, let me say, of all the parties represented in this House. In constituencies that are considered marginal, a welter of general election literature from political parties that is "off record" so far as election expenses are concerned is addressed individually to electors and put through their doors. That is nonsense and an abuse of the process, and it should not happen. It is not difficult to identify instances where election literature is directly addressed to an individual elector in a particular constituency. Such literature must surely count as an election expense.

I want also to consider the change in the deposit threshold. I accept that this issue gives cause for concern, but I do not take quite so strong a view as the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire because, in my view, the deposit is not the right way to eliminate fringe candidates. A financial barrier is not the right way to restrict access to the poll. A far better idea is to change the number of assenters, so as to require a demonstration of popular support in a constituency before entering the poll, rather than using the financial constraint of a deposit. We do need to consider this issue.

I welcome some of the new offences included in the Bill. We could go further by, for instance, preventing completed postal vote forms from falling into hands other than those of electors or returning officers. I welcome the co-ordinated online record of electors—the electronic register—and, I think, the performance standards, although I hope that they will not become over-prescriptive tick boxes. I hope that the Electoral Commission will seek, rather, to give guidelines and to audit the performance of electoral officers, rather than providing yet another system of targets. Moreover, the situation regarding imprints is still a mess, and I shall hope to improve it as the Bill progresses.

May we also please do something about the Post Office authorities' inappropriate influence in deciding what goes into a freepost leaflet? It is not for the Post Office to decide what we put in our leaflets. It is perhaps part of its job to refer something that it believes to be against election rules to the Electoral Commission, but it is not for the postmaster to decide what is appropriate for electors of X constituency to receive from candidates in an election.

I finish on a small point that is none the less important to Members. The Government are being cautious in doing something about the anomaly of the duplication involved in providing evidence of donations both to the Electoral Commission—as a result of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—and to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, whom we employ to deal with such matters. The Government should not feel such concern, because it is sensible to eliminate this duplication. Let the Electoral Commission have access to and audit our Register of Members' Interests, and let it be able to call in the commissioner for questioning, but let us not have this silly duplication.

If we all feel this way, we should not worry about what some splenetic tabloid writer may say about us weakening our standards. Eliminating this duplication would not weaken them—we know that, the Electoral Commission knows that and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards knows that. This would be a sensible and small improvement that would be welcomed by the Standards and Privileges Committee, on which I used to serve.

rose—

I give way for the very last time.

I just want to say that we agree with the hon. Gentleman on this issue.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; it is helpful if we form as broad a front as possible on it.

This is a modest but welcome Bill that is capable of improvement. I hope that the Conservatives will not express their distaste for its omissions by voting for the reasoned amendment, because that would be an unsatisfactory way of progressing what should be a Bill on which we reach consensus. For heaven's sake, let us see whether we can maintain the voting system's integrity and extend the franchise to those whom we are missing under the current process.

I will address most of my remarks to the issue of ensuring that disabled people have full access to the democratic process, but before doing so, I want to point out that there are a number of things about the Bill that I welcome. I am thinking in particular of some of the changes to postal voting, following the problems faced by those whose postal votes did not arrive. On the day of the 2005 general election, a Scottish Mirror headline read, "The election: postal ballot scandal—probe launched into vote rigging in Aberdeen". As the Labour candidate for Aberdeen, South, fighting a very tight marginal, one can imagine the trepidation with which I read that headline. Stating that a special probe into "postal voting irregularities" had been launched in Aberdeen, the article continued:

"Six people turned up to vote in the key marginal seat of Aberdeen, South, held by Labour's Ann Begg, only to be told that they had been registered as postal voters. Another six complained to election staff after failing to get postal voting papers they had applied for."

That story meant that the local registration officer launched an inquiry to establish what had happened. In the scheme of things, 12 votes going amiss is not perhaps a huge problem, but what happened to those individuals might well have been replicated across the whole country.

In some cases, people had forgotten that they had applied for a postal vote by ticking the form in the previous October. In some cases, they did not tick the form because of household registration: perhaps the head of household had decided that his whole family should apply for a postal vote. When the postal vote did not arrive, they were none the wiser and did not find out that they had a postal vote until they arrived at the polling station. It often did not dawn on those who did know that they had applied for a postal vote that they had not seen it until the day before the election. Only then did they wonder where it had gone. In all those cases, people turned up at the polling station but were not allowed to register their votes. At that stage, they were disfranchised and there was no way that they could register a vote in the hope that it could be checked at some time in the future. That is why I welcome two measures in the Bill—the marked postal vote register and the tendered voting system—and I hope that they will answer the concerns that were raised in my constituency during the election.

I want to make a point on behalf of my hon. Friend Rosemary McKenna, who unfortunately cannot be present today. She found that 500 votes in her constituency were discounted on account of a clerical error. It appears that the officer in one particular polling station had, instead of writing the polling number on the counterfoil, written it on the ballot form itself. That made it possible at the count to identify whose ballot papers they were, so 500 were discounted. My hon. Friend is looking for an assurance that the Bill will make provision to correct what was obviously a clerical error. The voting intentions in all those cases were perfectly clear and I am glad that that did not happen in my constituency. With a majority of 1,300, that could have been very worrying. In many constituencies, 500 votes can be the difference between winning and losing.

It is important for people to have the right to vote in a range of different ways. I do not agree with tightening access to postal votes, as the expansion of such votes has been a great advance, improving the access of elderly people and people with disabilities to the democratic process. However, the postal vote is not a panacea and should not be viewed as an either/or. Some people with disabilities will want to go and vote in person, while for others, postal voting may present as many barriers as going to vote in person.

I hope that the Bill will start to make access to voting much easier and my major plea is for consistency. It would appear that, on account of having different registration officers in different areas, there is little central guidance, which can result in different advice being given out to different polling clerks in different areas. It can even result in differences in the literature that is produced in different areas. For instance, one of my constituents did not realise that they should have received a postal vote until they turned up at the polling station because the polling card did not mention that a postal vote had been applied for. In areas such as Westminster—where I am also on the electoral register, as are other hon. Members—I know that polling cards did indicate that a postal vote had been allocated. Something as simple as the information on the polling card can help to inform people about exactly what they have signed up for.

Now that it is possible to apply for a postal vote for life, it is easy for people to forget from one election to another that they have already applied, leading to a duplication of applications for postal votes. As soon as an election is called, all the political parties start throwing leaflets through people's doors encouraging them to apply for a postal vote, resulting in people applying when they already have one. That is bound to increase the work load at a busy time for electoral registration officers. It is important to make their lives as easy as possible.

My plea for consistency also applies to what we mean by an accessible polling station. When I talk about access, I am not just talking about physical access. We tend to think of people in wheelchairs requiring physical access, which is, of course, important. I want to be able to get into all the polling stations in my constituency. This time, when my constituency had expanded by three wards, I discovered a polling station that I could not get into on polling day. I turned up to be faced with six steps. As a candidate, I wanted to go in and visit the polling station, but I found that in order to do so, the polling clerk would have to leave their position to go to open the back door to let me in—but how did I get to him to tell him to do that in the first place? That problem is not uncommon. There is often a big sign outside, saying "to gain access, please alert the polling clerk inside".

Disabled people want to vote on their own as well. Gaining physical access is important, and it is not just about sticking in a one-in-10 ramp over six steps. It can be quite daunting to see something that looks like the north face of the Eiger. There must be a proper ramp, which is not just a temporary expedient, but permanent and stable. Access for people with visual impairment may require a Braille template or large print to be in place.

Scope's "Polls Apart 4" report—so called because it is the fourth election in which the organisation carried out a survey of the accessibility of polling stations—caused considerable concern. I had thought that, at last, things would be a lot better. However, the Scope survey discovered that 68 per cent. of polling stations at the 2005 election did not meet every single one of the accessibility criteria. About 60 per cent. had flat access so that people in wheelchairs could get in, but other concerns had been forgotten about, so the polling stations did not meet all the accessibility criteria.

The report also found that in 63 per cent. of cases there were problems and barriers to postal voting, too. That shows that postal voting is not necessarily the answer to the problem of lack of physical access to a polling station. Too often, it has been expressed to me as an excuse that I can always vote by post. If the post box is not accessible or it is difficult for people living alone to find someone to countersign the ballot, postal voting cannot provide the answer. Postal voting is an alternative and it can make life easier for many disabled people, but it does not provide the whole answer. As a candidate, I certainly want to be able to visit all the polling stations in my constituency. Disabled groups are very keen that personal identifiers should be introduced. They are not so sure about piloting the scheme, but this debate has made me understand why the Government want that to happen. They also have some concerns about what happens in care homes, and who is responsible for filling in the registration forms and encouraging people to vote.

My time will run out soon, but I have a couple more things to say. First, I hope that the proxy vote will be retained. It is very important in constituencies such as mine, where many people work offshore. Postal voting does not always work for them, as they do not necessarily come home in the period between the day that an election is called and polling day. Proxy votes are also very important for people who work abroad—for instance, many of my constituents work in the middle east.

Finally, I am very glad that candidates are to be allowed their common names. When I first stood for election, I had to use the name Margaret A. Begg—the one that appears on the electoral register—even though everyone knows me as Anne Begg. The change proposed in the Bill is crucial for allowing people to identify candidates.

I am sure that Miss Begg has commanded a lot of support for her speech. She speaks from experience and with authority, especially on the difficulties faced by people with disabilities, and I am sure that the Minister of State and the rest of the House will have listened to her with great sympathy.

The House also listened with great admiration to the speech by Mr. Devine. He has popped out of the Chamber for a moment, but he spoke with great fluency and real commitment, and I am sure that he will become a valuable Member of the House. However, I must join him in regretting the reason for his presence—the terrible tragedy last August that took away one of the most consummate parliamentarians of the age.

I feel the loss particularly strongly. Robin Cook was one of the first people I saw on my delayed return to the House, and he greeted me very warmly. He said that something had to be done about the problem that I had faced, and that he would help me. Indeed, his name appears on the face of the private Member's Bill that I introduced on 6 July, as one of its sponsors.

In that context, I am grateful for the help given to me by my hon. Friend Mr. Heald, who opened the debate for the Opposition today. However, I am particularly grateful for the help given by the Minister of State and her officials. She was faced with a dilemma: she was sympathetic to my Bill but had to decide whether to support it, as every private Member's Bill is somewhat deficient in drafting. The alternative was to tack my proposals on to this Government Bill.

The Minister of State discussed the matter with me, and I readily accepted her preferred solution. She proposed that I should seek leave to introduce amendments during the Committee stage on the Floor of the House that, in effect, would incorporate the main points of my Bill into the Government's proposals.

Given the help that I have received, I am afraid that I shall not support the Opposition's reasoned amendment later tonight. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire will fully understand that that is because I want to see this Bill, imperfect as it might be, on the statute book. In this matter, I take the line adopted by Mr. Heath. He and my hon. Friend made several points—for example, about deposits and voting rights for prisoners—with which I agree entirely. I also agree with the hon. Gentleman about the length of the campaign, but nevertheless, this is a Bill that can be improved in Committee as long as it is approached in a consensual way by hon. Members of all parties.

I want to concentrate on the matter that caused me so much concern and which delayed my return to the House. I do not speak in any sense selfishly, as I would not want any hon. Member, of any party, to have to go through what I went through. Tragically, my Liberal Democrat opponent in my constituency died on the Saturday before polling day. Friends in the Liberal Democrat party, both locally and nationally, wondered whether they could help, but there was nothing that anybody could do to accelerate the process.

As a result, we had to wait seven weeks to hold the election. My constituents were disfranchised for all that time. For South Staffordshire, that was something of an inconvenience, and for me it was a frustration. However, if the delay had affected Mr. Speaker, for instance, he could not have been elected to the Chair. If it had affected the Prime Minister, he could not have addressed the House on the day of the Queen's Speech. Indeed, given that the Labour party constitution states that the leader of the party must be a Member of Parliament, it is arguable whether he could have remained Prime Minister.

Another matter that must be borne in mind is that this is an age when people campaign in some rather strange ways. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a person campaigning on a euthanasia ticket might deliberately take his or her own life, or that a terrorist might do likewise. As it is stands, the law allows a person to stand in as many constituencies as he or she can find the deposits and the names for.

On 6 July, I referred on the Floor of the House to the case of the lady who stood in all four Cardiff seats. She picked up fewer than 400 votes in all, and in one seat registered only one vote—presumably her own. However, if she had died, whether tragically or deliberately, there would have been no representation in that city.

I remember the elections in February and October 1974. If something similar had happened then, the Government of the day could have been in doubt. The House might also cast its mind back to what happened in Germany recently. That election shows that such difficulties can be dealt with much more expeditiously than is possible for us at present. The death of a candidate in Dresden delayed the election there for two weeks, compared with the seven weeks here. Therefore, I shall introduce amendments to the Bill that will attempt to address the question of delay.

I shall also table an amendment that would prevent a delay if an independent candidate in an election were to die. After all, the Prime Minister had many independent candidates standing against him. Independent candidates are sui generis, by definition, and there is no replacement if one dies. I am delighted to say that the Government have accepted the force of that argument.

All hon. Members felt for the difficulties that the hon. Gentleman suffered as a result of the tragic death of the Liberal Democrat candidate in his constituency, and we all knew that we could be put in the same position. He is right to say that we must deal with the problem, which could have dramatic consequences, especially in the circumstances of a hung Parliament or a very close result.

I have just made that point, and I am glad to have it endorsed.

The Minister of State did not agree with me on one point, and I accept her argument. I wanted some threshold to be established for smaller parties, but she and the Electoral Commission were very uneasy about defining the differences between genuine parties and ones that are less genuine. In parenthesis, however, I think that she really ought to think again about the question of the deposit. A proliferation of candidates from fringe parties could create a problem that she and I would prefer to avoid. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire made some telling points in advancing the argument on that issue.

The Minister of State agrees with me that nominations should not reopen for new candidates. The difficulties that I experienced happened during a general election, not a by-election, so I did not cease to be a Member of Parliament. When a general election vote is delayed in such circumstances, the poll that is finally held should replicate the general election as far as possible. However, the law as it stands allowed the Labour party to substitute a candidate.

I make no personal criticism of that, as the lady in question had very good reasons for standing down, but the same mechanism could be used to shoehorn into a constituency high-profile people who had lost elsewhere.

Equally there were three other fringe candidates who had not signified their desire to fight in the general election who suddenly appeared on the scene. I do not think that that is right. Some people have tried to argue that everything should open again, but it should not. It is the general election. Everyone has the right to decide whether to contest a particular constituency, and if they decide to do so, they should still stand in any delayed general election. However, if they want to withdraw, they must convince the returning officer that they have a very good reason to do so. They are not substituted. In this instance I think that the Minister of State has strengthened the provision that I included in my Bill.

I am delighted that the Minister has accepted the need to tackle the problem of multiple candidatures. We live in an age that is very different from that of which we are reminded at the beginning of every state opening when the Speaker says that all of those elected for more than one constituency must hereby declare which one they wish to represent, or words to that effect. That is one of the first things that is said at the beginning of a new Parliament.

We all know that the days of hedging bets by standing for a second constituency, as some illustrious people in the past did, have long gone. Nowadays, multiple candidature is used by the maverick or eccentric candidate. So we are not limiting the right of any man or any women to stand in any constituency of his or her choice. We are merely saying, "Make your choice and stand in that constituency, not in a dozen others."

Imagine the mayhem that could be caused, deliberately or accidentally, if someone decided to stand against every member of the Cabinet or every member of the shadow Cabinet, and then died or killed himself. We would suddenly have constitutional mayhem. We can relax because my experience was merely an inconvenience for me and my constituents, but it could have precipitated a constitutional crisis, especially if the result of the election had been much closer than it was.

I think that my experience has highlighted some bad law. I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which she has responded. I am grateful also to all those Members in all parts of the House who agreed to sponsor my Bill, including the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, Rev. Ian Paisley, and three very senior Liberal Democrats. When I come to move my amendments, I will have drafted them with the help that has been offered by the Minister. I hope that they will be accepted by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House. I hope also that when the next general election comes, whenever that might be, there will be no Member who will have to go through what I and the electors of South Staffordshire had to experience on 23 June, or in waiting for 23 June. I appeal for help when I move my amendments. I hope that many members will sign up to them.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend Mr. Devine, who achieved a good balance between a moving maiden speech and a very funny maiden speech.

I welcome the Bill. It is a good measure that achieves the right balance between widening participation and securing the vote. Before the Bill was published, I felt that there was a danger of over-emphasis being placed on securing the vote. I am pleased that that is not the case. Newspapers were full of articles about postal ballot fraud and Ministers were questioned at the Dispatch Box on the issue of electoral fraud. Of course, electoral fraud, including postal ballot fraud, is a serious issue, but we must have regard to the statistics. I tabled a written question, No. 10802, on 14 July. I asked the Minister how many successful prosecutions there had been for postal ballot fraud, at parliamentary and local government level, over recent years. I was told that there had been none at parliamentary level and about one or two a year for local government elections.

Surely the greater evil is to have 3 million to 4 million missing or unregistered electors—figures revealed by the Electoral Commission in September. I welcome the commission's research. If I have any criticism of it, it is that the research was not conducted three or four years ago when many Members, certainly on the Government Benches, were raising concerns about under-registration. Had that research taken place at that time, perhaps the newspapers would have been full of what I say is a greater injustice—3 million to 4 million missing electors.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is disappointing that the commission has not made any recommendations to increase electoral registration? It has focused almost entirely on individual registration, to the detriment of the situation that he is describing.

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and one to which I am coming.

The research undertaken by the commission revealed—I think that my right hon. and learned Friend referred to this in her opening remarks—the profile of unregistered electors. They are unemployed, low paid, young and living in rented accommodation. In the words of my right hon. and learned Friend, they are the most disengaged of our electorate.

If proposals for a single signature for each elector had been adopted, the number of unregistered voters could have doubled to 7 million to 8 million, compared with 3 million to 4 million. When a single signature for each elector was adopted in Northern Ireland, there was a fall in the number of electors of about 10 per cent. To have 7 million to 8 million voters missing from the register is not the way that a western democracy should function.

I asked my right hon. and learned Friend what the Electoral Commission had predicted if a single signature system were to be introduced in this country. I was horrified by her answer, which came from the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission. The commission stated that it had not undertaken any detailed research into the likely impact of the introduction of full individual registration in Great Britain on the levels of voter registration. The commission advises that such research would involve making a number of speculative assumptions and would thus be open to a significant margin of error. I am horrified that no research has been undertaken and that no predictions have been made. Serious action should be taken by the Government.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is the role of the state to get people on to the register and that we should do as much as we can to achieve that? It is not for individual authorities or whatever to get people on to the register; it is the role of the Government and the state to encourage people to take part in the democratic process.

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend.

I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will not rush headlong into single signature registration. I trust that she will give the matter careful thought. If pilots are to take place, I make the specific request that there should be no priority until we have those 3 million to 4 million people back on the register. Without that there will not be true piloting. We are talking of the people who are most likely to stay off the register if there is a single signature system.

I shall make some suggestions for consideration by my right hon. and learned Friend. I welcome her open approach, which means that she is prepared to consider views expressed by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, provided that they are reasoned and backed by statistical data.

Having tabled dozens, if not hundreds, of written questions on electoral registration, it is obvious that not enough information is collected centrally by my right hon. and learned Friend's Department. The Bill will go some way towards addressing that. Ministers do not know, for example, how much is spent by each local authority. I want to sing the praises of the National Assembly for Wales. I asked my Assembly colleague, Ann Jones, if she would ask her Minister how much was spent by each county in Wales per elector on registration, and I would ask mine how much was spent by each county in England. Her question was answered fully by the Assembly, but the response from my Minister was that the information was not collected centrally.

No work is being done on the competency or professionalism of registration staff. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that needs addressing, too?

I echo those thoughts. The status of electoral registration officers should be recognised. Their pay and training should be increased because they are doing a great job in difficult circumstances. They take the blame for inefficiency and under- registration, yet that is often the fault of the local authority for not assigning enough finance in the first place.

There are contrasting approaches to registration. In north Wales, I receive one letter a year about registration, whereas in London I receive three, as well as someone coming to my door. We need a more uniform approach to encourage people to register, and many local authorities could do much more.

I concur with my hon. Friend.

The Minister referred to minimum standards. May I respectfully ask that minimum standards be high, transparent and readily understood by elected representatives and the public? Local authority electoral administrative performance should be made available to MPs and the public and should be in league table format. Successful electoral registration officers and departments should be recognised, while there should be sanctions against failing authorities and departments. There should either be financial sanctions or responsibility should be handed over to a more successful neighbouring authority or an outside agency. Democracy is too important to be left to a council with a devil-may-care attitude to the basic building block of all elections, be they local, national or European—the electoral register.

I appreciate my hon. Friend's point that electoral registration officers should measure up and perform well, but given the profile of the people missing from the register is it not likely that those in areas where there are larger numbers of students and poor people will suffer discrimination? We should compare like with like.

I shall shortly be coming to the question of student registration.

Clear direction should be given about the use of door-to-door canvassing, which was widely and successfully used in the past. The practice has diminished over recent years, mainly on cost grounds, but electoral registration officers should be given specific instructions to use door-to-door canvassing. Whether it is at the end of the process, after the initial letter has gone out, the reminders have been sent or telephone calls have been made, we need to knock on doors to ensure that we maximise registration. The report by the Office for National Statistics on conducting the canvass strongly suggests that at some stage in the process personal contact must be made with householders to maximise response rates.

Electoral registration could be dramatically improved if all EROs and electoral administration departments fully utilised current powers, which were given to them in the Representation of the People Act 2000. However, if I were to ask how many electoral administration departments were using those powers, I am sure that I would be told that the information is not collected centrally. Using existing powers could make a big difference.

New computer programmes also offer opportunities. Local land and property gazettes give a unique property reference number to each building, each floor in a building and each living unit on that floor. Such 21st century information systems could offer a full picture of every house, home or living unit in a county or constituency. It would be of particular use to me in my constituency where there are about 1,500 houses in multiple occupation. If we knew where each living unit was, we would have a greater chance of knowing who lived there.

Local authorities should also co-operate with the Royal Mail, which keeps a comprehensive list of properties. They should have the power to ask for information from owners of HMOs and caravan sites and from social landlords to help them to compile the register. Such powers should be used fully. The right and responsibility of EROs to consult local government databases, which was established in 2001, is the key to finding most of the information necessary for a full register. For example, education departments could furnish the ERO with the names and addresses of further and higher education students and sixth-formers. Social services departments could furnish information about residential and nursing homes, people receiving home help and attendance allowance, and vulnerable young adults. Housing departments have a treasure trove of information about council tenants and people on housing benefit. Environment or public protection departments will have details about HMOs. EROs should also have the right to consult letting agents and social landlords. The means are already in place, but they need careful monitoring. If all my proposals were carried out we could obtain most of the required information. My question to the Minister is: are those powers used? I do not think that they are, otherwise about 4 million people would not be missing from the electoral register.

I urge the Minister to go further and push for secondary legislation to allow EROs to access central Government databases. If a majority of unregistered people are unemployed, why not use unemployment registers to find out where they are? If a majority are on low pay, why not use the tax credit registers to find out where they are? We should not wait another two or three years to see whether the current proposals are embedded. We should act now.

I welcome the Bill's proposals and I am pleased that the Minister has welcomed suggestions to improve security and widen participation. If we act co-operatively and collegiately and make our best suggestions, the Minister will take them up and democracy will be the better for it.

I get the impression that the Government came to power full of great ideas for reforming and improving the electoral system, but so far there has not been much progress—or at least only in limited areas.

The Government have already introduced two major changes to the electoral system and the Bill will bring a third. The first change was the introduction of rolling registration, which as far as we can tell has gone reasonably well, although people have said that it may enable bogus voters to stay on the register indefinitely.

The second change was the relaxation of access to postal voting, which was a disaster. The details of the Birmingham case and everything that accompanied it— the so-called warehousing problems—need not detain us. Mr. Heath read part of the judgment and it was absolutely right, as was the judge. The Government and the Electoral Commission between them really mucked it up. They failed the first and overriding test of any reform in this field—to maintain confidence in the system.

The credibility of the electoral system has taken a severe knock among a large section of the electorate. It is paramount in any democracy that people should believe that the electoral system is fair and acceptable and not subject to fraud. The Government make a number of proposals in the Bill to try to prevent such things from happening again. One proposal is to create a new offence of falsely applying for a postal vote. I am no lawyer, but I am not yet convinced of the need for that offence. The people who engaged in the so-called warehousing in Birmingham knew very well that they were committing an offence. The new offence seems to have the smell of "display purpose only" legislation, of which we have had so much in the past few years, adding to the statute book but perhaps not to the effectiveness of the law.

Of course the third major change to registration, which is a major part of the Bill, is the switch from household to individual registration. Frankly, I cannot tell whether the Government intend to introduce personal identifiers and keep the household system going, or whether they really intend to move to a truly individual registration system eventually. I was still not clear on that, even after the Minister had introduced the Bill. What is worse is that the Government clearly want one thing, a halfway house, while the Electoral Commission wants another—it wants the Bill to go the whole hog right at the start. I certainly have the impression that the Government are dragging their feet on the Electoral Commission's original proposals.

I am sceptical that the integrity of the electoral system will be seen to improve much with the Government's halfway house. I would not have rushed to adopt individual registration, but I am beginning to warm to it now that I have heard the argument tonight. The Electoral Commission, of course, wants a truly individual registration system. It believes that such a system is now a vital part of restoring credibility in the system after the postal voting farrago. Sam Younger makes that clear in the briefing letter that, I think, was sent to all MPs, when he says, "Without individual registration", by which he means the fully fledged system,

"it is hard to see how the very real concerns . . . about the security of the postal voting system can be properly addressed."

We have had an experiment with postal voting. It has gone wrong, and to patch it up we are about to embark on another experiment, with the Electoral Commission pulling one way and the Government another. The fact they are already arguing about that pretty much in public does not make me very optimistic about success.

Why do we need to take such risks with something as important as the credibility of the electoral system, which was already working reasonably well before the reforms began? We have heard some of the answers from those on the Front Bench. Of course, the main answer given is that a good number of people—in particular, the Government—convinced themselves that the old system was not working.

Whenever we have these debates we tend to hear a lot about how voter participation is in sharp decline, about fears of voter apathy and, as a consequence, of great dangers to democracy and the like. Of course our system is imperfect, but as I have already intimated, the greater risk may lie with half-baked changes that can further erode the electorate's confidence in the system. In any case, I am not convinced that the electoral system is in such a terrible mess. I think that the doomsters have largely got it wrong.

No amount of meddling with the electoral system will dramatically increase turnout. That will come when the electorate go into an election very uncertain of the result. I do not think that they did so at the last election, and they certainly did not in the 2001 election when the turnout was very low. When the outcome was uncertain and two parties were arguing vigorously, with very different policy stances, we had one of the highest turnouts ever seen in this country, as recently as 1992. I do not think that the country has suddenly gone into a paroxysm of apathy since then, and the case is greatly overstated that voter apathy and problems of participation have increased massively—but perhaps we should debate that wider issue more deeply another day.

Wherever the Government have introduced such proposals, whenever they have travelled down the road of electoral reform, we seem to be given further evidence of the law of unintended consequences, and I fear that the Bill will be more of the same.—[Interruption.] The Minister is saying something from a sedentary position that I cannot hear, I am afraid. She is welcome to intervene if she wants to.

The hon. Gentleman says that there are unintended consequences when the Government take action, and I was simply muttering—my apologies for doing so—that that is why we want to pilot the introduction of individual identifiers, not rush into things wholesale, thus causing what happened in Northern Ireland, where we had to legislate and then legislate again to deal with the problems that we created in the first bit of legislation.

The Minister may have a point, judging by what happened with the unintended consequences of another aspect of the Representation of the People Act 2000. I am sure that she did not intend to disfranchise a large proportion of service personnel at the last election, but that was the effect of the legislation. It is a scandal that we have been sending troops to Iraq to help to build a democracy while making it so difficult for them to vote in the last general election. A very large proportion of them almost certainly did not vote. It is disgraceful that when I warned the Government about that in late 2004, on the basis of evidence that I had gleaned from my constituency, they did virtually nothing about it. Equally disgraceful has been the Government's response since then. I can find nothing in the Bill to suggest that they will tackle the problem.

In the Constitutional Affairs Committee last week, I secured the Lord Chancellor's agreement—it is fairer to say that I wrung agreement from him—to produce a thorough report on how the problem arose and what the Government intend to do about it. If we are to avoid more delay in finding a solution, we need several things. First—I hope that the Minister will say that she agrees to this—we need a survey of servicemen to be undertaken to establish how many of them were disfranchised. We need not survey all this country's servicemen; we need to pick a group and conduct an intelligent survey.

indicated assent.

I am grateful to the Minister for her nod of assent.

Secondly, we need a careful examination of what action the Government took after they were warned in 2004, before the general election. Thirdly, we need the Government's proposals on how to ensure that such things never happen again. The third requirement can be met only if we have accurate information on the first and second.

Finding a solution will not be complicated. All that the Government need do—certainly for the next election, while they consider longer-term reform—is restore the old service voter registration scheme. That would do the job in one jump. Incidentally, I also alerted the Electoral Commission to those problems in 2004, and I regret to say that it was also breathtaking in the complacency of its response. After a number of inconclusive exchanges with Sam Younger, its chairman, requesting that he take action, he finally sent me a letter on 6 December, and I shall just read a small section of that extraordinary reply, where he said:

"We will certainly look at the possibility of producing a leaflet aimed at service personnel when we plan for the next canvass to be held in late 2005"— after the likely date of the general election.

The Electoral Commission and the Government are full of grand schemes and noble projects, many of them costly, to improve voter registration and participation. I really wonder whether we would not now do better just to stick to basics. For example, let us ensure that 250,000 service personnel get the vote at the next election. Let us take fewer risks with postal voting. We have made quite a mess of it in the last few years; we now need to avoid further mistakes that could further erode the credibility of our electoral system. We have had more than three quarters of a century of electoral registration with a full franchise, and we have not done so badly. A note of caution is required now.

Like other hon. Members, I begin by paying a warm tribute to my hon. Friend Mr. Devine, who is not in his seat at present. He gave a very good account of himself this evening.

The Bill is important not least because it begins to deal with legislation that dates back to as early as 1872. I hope that it will bring it up to 21st century standards, but I want to focus on my experience in a London constituency. At the general election, I went down streets in my constituency where one in every two households had no one on the register. There were polling districts in which 30 per cent. of the electorate were missing from the register. We have a registration crisis, especially in London, although the problem exists all over the country. Between 3.5 million and 4 million electors are missing nationally—between 8 and 9 per cent. of the electorate.

House of Commons researchers estimate that, in 2001, 5,400 electors were missing from the register in my constituency, but that by 2004 another 3,500 could have been added to the total. A comparison of the electoral register for 2003 with census figures for 2001 shows that 9,600 people were missing from the register. As I said, 21 out of the 25 constituencies with the most people missing from the register are in Greater London. The crisis in registration must be a priority, especially for the Bill.

Sadly, I do not think that the problem has been shared with the Electoral Commission. Although most of the Bill's provisions have resulted from various reports and research carried out by the Electoral Commission, little research has been done on registration itself. The focus of the commission's activities in recent months has been individual registration. We might want to move to individual registration, but we have limited experience of it so far. Much of our experience comes from Northern Ireland, where the proportion of the electorate on the register fell to 84 per cent. It was only when the electoral officer of Northern Ireland disagreed with the Electoral Commission that the figure was boosted to 94 per cent.

The thing that surprises me most is that of the duties that Parliament has asked the Electoral Commission to undertake on our behalf, its third is to encourage greater participation in elections. I know that a balance must be struck between individual registration and not erecting hurdles that will reduce registration, but I submit that the Electoral Commission has simply got its priorities wrong. We have a democratic deficit in this country stretching to 3.5 million electors—some 7,000 in my constituency, if we take that as the average figure—so we need to comment when the Electoral Commission, which is supposed to be accountable to Parliament, appears to ignore it. The Electoral Commission has a duty to report to Parliament through the Speaker's Committee, so I urge those who will next review its five-year plan to examine carefully whether the commission is getting its priorities right. I believe that if the commission were doing that, it would be paying far greater attention to the registration process and to how we can get more people on the register.

We could do several things to increase registration. Although I shall mention other matters, if we are honest about the balance of all the issues with which the Bill deals, registration must be our priority. First, electoral registration officers must have access to all information that can assist the registration process. In 2004, a statutory instrument was passed to help the process. It clarified the fact that officers may access registers for council tax, council rent and housing benefit, as is right and proper. However, my local electoral registration officer tells me that the information on local authority registers often does not give officers the precise information that would be of most benefit to them.

I suggest, therefore, that we consider extending the information available to electoral registration officers, much of which will be on national registers. For example, we could consider using information from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the Land Registry. We could even—dare I say it?—use information from TV Licensing because we know that 98 per cent. of all households have a television. I understand that under data protection rules such information might not be made available, but we could use other mechanisms and work with those organisations to communicate to people the need for registration if they are to vote at local and general elections.

Secondly, we need a properly resourced electoral registration service. It was said earlier that we no longer see properly qualified electoral registration staff. Electoral registration staff in my local authority area, who have been working with the same funding for the past 10 years, carry out a canvass each year. Hon. Members will thus understand that the extent to which the canvass is comprehensive has declined somewhat over those 10 years. That is not the only problem, however, because under a process called adverse selection, canvassing takes place in areas where electoral registration is already high, but areas where registration is low are not canvassed. When one asks why, one is told that canvassers find it difficult to canvass in those areas. We must examine carefully the way in which registration is conducted.

The Electoral Commission has done a good job on this issue because it has researched the prevalence of non-registration. It has identified three groups in particular that do not register for elections, so with a bit of advice and support we could target those groups and get them on the register.

Thirdly, electoral registration departments almost always act on their own. They are almost always ignored by their local authorities and there is no national mechanism to bring them into any sort of process. Performance standards are an important mechanism through which the Electoral Commission can assure local people that their departments perform their functions properly, but we must also ensure that the departments are given the best advice. We should allow them to come together to talk about how that advice could be used throughout the country to improve the process. We must, of course, ensure that expenditure on electoral registration is transparent. The Bill will make additional money available for the electoral registration process, but I would like an assurance that it will get through to electoral registration officers because that has always been a problem.

I understand that I have only a few moments left in which to speak, but I want to comment on the important issues of corruption and individual registration. I certainly do not underestimate the need for change and greater security. It is clear that the greatest focus has been on personation and vote rigging. We heard earlier about the situation in Blackburn and Birmingham. Genuine difficulties must be addressed and we should not underestimate them. Labour Members have pointed out that the extent of electoral fraud is not as great as that which is sometimes reflected in our national media, but we should all be worried about any such fraud. However, the Bill addresses the issue, especially in postal voting, where most of the problems have arisen.

We must acknowledge the important contribution that postal voting has made to increasing participation in elections. At the 2005 general election, 12 per cent. of the electorate registered for postal votes, accounting for 14.5 per cent. of the votes that were cast. We certainly do not want to lose such an important contribution.

The Bill introduces four measures that will help to improve security. As has already been said, there is a new offence of falsely applying for a postal vote, which will deal with some of the problems that arose in Birmingham. The use of personal identifiers, particularly someone's signature, is important. Undue influence, a major factor in recent cases, will become an offence, as will providing false information. All those measures should satisfy people that we are beginning to make voting much more secure. I believe that surveys should be conducted as well, but overall the Bill is an excellent measure that should be warmly welcomed by the House.

May I explain the basis on which I seek to participate in this debate? The Electoral Commission was created as a free-standing body after 2000, but a means had to be found to control its strategic plans and budget. The Speaker's Committee was therefore instituted, and the commission is accountable to the House of Commons through an hon. Member—me—who answers written questions on the Electoral Commission. I answered one yesterday from Chris Ruane and, if he requires it, I am happy to provide him with clarification later. I also answer oral questions in the House once a month, and I try to be neutral and objective. I once said that I am merely a drone target against which colleagues can assay their shafts of wit and wisdom. I do not comment in the media on Electoral Commission issues because, given my efforts to be neutral and objective, it is not appropriate to do so. However, as the Bill will change fundamentally the Electoral Commission's structure and operational methods I thought it appropriate to seek neutrally to express its views on the measure.

The Electoral Commission welcomes the Bill, 80 per cent. of which derives from its proposals. Similarly, 80 per cent. of the commission's recommendations were accepted by the Government and are included in the Bill. The Electoral Commission welcomes the provisions to allow independent observers at elections and referendums for the first time; to reduce the minimum age of candidacy at all elections from 21 to 18; to enable people to register after an election has been called, up to 11 days before polling day; to enable electoral registration officers and returning officers actively to encourage participation in elections and referendums; to improve assistance for disabled voters and voters whose first language is not English; and to improve the nomination process with measures that include the standardisation of deposits and the lowering of the forfeiture threshold from 5 to 2 per cent. It welcomes provisions to reintroduce descriptions of independent candidates; to reduce the administrative burdens on political parties, candidates and others; to provide stronger deterrents against electoral fraud by introducing two new electoral offences; to increase the length of time available for the police to carry out investigations into electoral fraud; and to introduce performance standards for local authority electoral services.

The Electoral Commission broadly welcomes the Bill, for which it has been pressing, but there is pressure on the legislative process, as the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland will know better than anyone else in the House. He will agree that we must get the Bill right. It is the first national legislation to be introduced on the subject in five years, and there was a gap of 15 years separating the 2000 legislation from the preceding legislation. It is therefore likely that this is the last chance that we will have before the next general election to get electoral legislation correct.

The Minister of State spoke about fraud when she introduced the Bill. While the total amount of fraud is small, it has a disproportionate effect on people's trust and confidence in the system. The Electoral Commission's study of participation in the 2005 general election shows that for the first time more people rated the postal voting system as unsafe than safe, and were worried about incorrect registration and votes going astray. There is considerable concern about houses in multiple occupation, as residents are not all registered by the head of household—a dated concept in the 21st century. Who is the head of household in an HMO? The Electoral Commission believes that the system to register voters by the head of household is out of date and should be replaced with a full system of individual registration. Since 2003, it has consistently recommended replacing the current system of household registration with a system in which individuals register themselves to vote, providing personal identifiers at the same time. It believes that the household registration system is open to abuse and error. Individual registration would help to encourage a sense of personal involvement in the democratic process, and it would produce a more accurate electoral register while improving the security of the system, allowing people to participate with confidence.

In particular, a system of full individual registration would mean that at all stages of postal voting checks would be made against the personal identifiers on the register for each elector to ensure that only individuals who are entitled to do so can cast a vote by post. The commission has a two-fold difficulty with the Government's proposal to pilot the use of personal identifiers. First, outside the pilot areas, postal voting will still be available without an adequate system of security checks. Secondly, a proposal to pilot falls short of a commitment to implement the core recommendation for full individual registration throughout Great Britain, which the commission believes is right in principle as well as urgently needed to counter the risk of postal vote fraud. The Electoral Commission was created to advise on electoral matters, and I am pleased to have had the opportunity to put its advice on the parliamentary record.

I generally welcome the Bill, but I am concerned about some provisions. I am pleased that the Government are moving towards individual registration through the use of personal identifiers. The use of an identifying signature is important, particularly for postal voting. I am pleased that the Government are not rushing ahead with their proposals, and will use pilot schemes. They have been criticised, with some justification, for proceeding too fast in previous schemes, so it is right and proper that they are proceeding with their current proposals step by step. I welcome the fact that, for the first time, returning officers will be obliged to maintain a marked register of postal voters. Some Members have spoken about postal voting in Birmingham, but if the electoral registration officer there had not voluntarily maintained a marked register of postal votes, the fraud would not have come to light.

I am concerned about the proposal that independent candidates should be allowed six words to describe their stance. In Wales, such candidates can use Welsh. My constituency is multi-cultural and has a Muslim majority. Can such a description be given in Punjabi or Urdu? There will be provisions to prevent an abuse of the description, and a candidate may not use what is said to be a collective term. I can imagine that if, at the last general election, there had been the opportunity to use six words, candidates in certain constituencies would have described themselves as "supporter of anti-Iraq war campaign". I am not sure that is a good way of moving democracy forward.

The provision to reduce the threshold for the deposit to 2 per cent. is not a positive step. It will encourage publicity seekers. I know of many restaurant owners in the balti sector of my constituency who would happily pay £500 for the right to advertise themselves as the owner of such-and-such a restaurant in so-and-so road.

As regards independent observers in polling stations, I make the same point as I made before. I am not sure what their role will be, but it will be greatly diminished in a multicultural constituency such as mine if they cannot speak Urdu or Punjabi.

I return to the subject of campaigning outside polling stations, which I raised in the debate on the integrity of the electoral system on 22 June. I pointed out what occurs in the real world of my constituency and other multicultural constituencies. In the past, it was a convention among political parties and candidates that there would be no campaigning outside polling stations, loudspeaker vans would not be parked outside polling stations, loudspeakers would be turned off as soon as they got within the vicinity, the tellers taking numbers would exchange information among the various parties, and there would be a great deal of conviviality. That may still happen in some areas of the country, but it is certainly not what happens in inner-city Birmingham, and I suspect it is not what happens in a number of other multicultural inner-city areas.

On election day in Birmingham, people congregate at the entrance to polling stations. They hand out leaflets and give out a great deal of misinformation, particularly to voters whose first language is not English and for whom the number is more important than the name on the ballot paper. Over the course of the day, the numbers increase, so that by early evening there could be 50 or 60 people campaigning outside the polling station gates. In addition, there are cars parked outside polling stations or close by, with continuous messages being played in English, Punjabi and Urdu, so that people going to vote have to run a gauntlet of campaigners giving out leaflets, misinformation, peer pressure, and subliminal messages being churned out over and over again by loudspeaker vans.

When I highlighted the problem in the debate on 22 June, the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, who is not present, said that she appreciated what was said and that the Government "are genuinely consulting". I do not know what consultation has taken place, but there is nothing in the Bill that addresses the problem. It is not a problem that will go away; indeed, it will get worse. The police are placed in an impossible position. They know what is going on but they can do nothing about it. It is no good saying that section 115 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 covers the situation. It does not. That section refers to attempts to stop someone voting. The people who operate outside a polling station are not trying to stop people voting. They are trying to influence how they vote. The Bill does not deal with the issue.

Clause 37 has a stab at resolving the problem. It extends the current definition by making it an offence to attempt to prevent an elector from exercising the franchise, even if the attempt is unsuccessful. I do not know what that means. I say again that people do not stand around outside a polling station for hours on end in order to get a suntan. They stand there because they know of the influence that that can have on electors, particularly vulnerable electors whose main language is Urdu or Punjabi.

It could be said that the police should deal with the matter, but they have other rather important tasks. There is often a policeman inside a polling station, but not outside. The police do not have the resources. In any event, unless the policeman spoke Urdu or Punjabi, how on earth would he know if somebody was being threatened, intimidated or pressurised?

We have a policeman who speaks Urdu.

I commend that policeman.

The way to resolve the problem is by not allowing campaigning within a certain proximity to polling stations. I do not see why the Government have not taken the issue on board and included such a measure in the Bill. It seems obvious that people want to be able to go and vote without pressure and in peace. We need to stop people congregating at the entrance to polling stations, and stop cars and loudspeaker vans being parked outside or close by and playing continuous messages all day. Not only is there no need for that, but they are there for only one purpose—to try and influence or put pressure on the people going in.

I do not understand why, in a Bill that is commendable overall, the Government are not prepared to bite the bullet and ban campaigning, handing out leaflets, playing messages on loudspeakers or indulging in other electoral activities within 100 or 150 yd of a polling station. If that were the case, the police would know what their position was and they would be able to take action. At present, they do not know and cannot act.

I hope the Minister who responds later and his colleagues will reconsider the Bill. The problems that I have described might apply only to certain parts of the country—not his, perhaps, but certainly to my city and to the constituencies of other right hon. and hon. Members. There is one present, my hon. Friend Kelvin Hopkins, to whose city I can well imagine it applies. It is essential that the matter be dealt with now. If not, it will come back to haunt the Government. Next time we have a debate on electoral integrity, Birmingham may well come up again. I very much hope it will not, but if it does, I suspect that will be in the context of what has happened at a polling station in Birmingham where just the sort of practices that I have outlined tonight have, sadly, occurred.

The Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru offer a qualified welcome to this important Bill, which is a modest but useful step towards democratic renewal. My hon. Friends and I will not support the reasoned amendment, if it comes to a vote.

In Wales, there is a wealth of propositions on how to extend democracy. Some hon. Members will be familiar with the National Assembly for Wales White Paper, which, I hope, we will discuss later this year. At the last general election, turnout in Wales was slightly higher—a percentage point or two—than in England, which was certainly the case in my constituency, but that does not mean that we should become complacent about the problems that our electoral system faces.

As I have said, the SNP and Plaid Cymru welcome the Bill. In particular, we welcome the establishment of the co-ordinated on-line register of electors and clause 20, which will reduce the minimum age for standing for Parliament from 21 to 18. We also welcome the reduction in the threshold for losing a deposit from 5 per cent. to 2 per cent. That will not benefit my party hugely, and it will certainly not benefit the SNP, about which the research paper mentions a sum of £4,000. However, the political scene in Scotland and Wales includes a number of small but entirely legitimate political parties, which add to the variety of our democracy. They should be encouraged and, although they should not be encouraged enough to deprive any hon. Members of their seats, they should not be discouraged by a high threshold.

I draw hon. Members' attention to the interesting figures on lost deposits in the research paper. The figures include the British National party, which I vehemently oppose, but the parties that lost most were the Greens, which lost £65,500, and the UK Independence party, which lost £151,000. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] I hope that my party has largely replaced the Greens in Wales, and we have opposed UKIP vehemently, but such financial losses are a disincentive for those legitimate parties. For that reason, we welcome the reduction in the threshold.

Clause 63 is designed to encourage participation in elections. We welcome it, and it will probably form part of the Welsh legislation that I referred to earlier.

Clause 19 states that each community council in Wales will be a separate polling district, which is an important point. Particularly in rural areas of Wales, community councils form the architecture of people's understanding of electoral districts. In my constituency, we had 83 booths at the last election, and I am glad to say that I managed to visit them all on the day. Community councils are important because they are coherent to the local community and provide a local point of contact. As I have said, I welcome the fact that clause 19 states that each community council area will be a separate polling district.

Some hon. Members may think that my next point is of minor importance, but it has a specific Welsh interest and is certainly not minor in Wales. Mr. Godsiff has already mentioned the naming and description of parties, and clause 23 allows party titles in Wales to include up to six words of Welsh and six words of English.

My hon. Friend has mentioned the entitlement to the use of Welsh in Wales. I wonder whether the Minister thinks it equitable to give Scottish Gaelic the same status in Scotland for elections, and perhaps Ulster Scots and Irish Gaelic should have the same status in the north of Ireland. That would represent, recognise and understand the indigenous languages of the United Kingdom—I make a particular plea for Scottish Gaelic, as a native Gaelic speaker.

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which I shall address in a moment.

The allowance includes six words in Welsh and six words in English. My compatriots have a reputation for being verbose and using three words where one word will do in English, and the extra space recognises the reality and the normality in Wales of bilingualism. Again, I am not speaking only on behalf of my party. In Welsh, my party's title is Plaid Cymru, and in English it is the party of Wales, which makes six words, so we do not require 12 words. The Conservative party is Y Blaid Geidwadol, which again makes six words. However, the Wales Labour party is Y Blaid Lafur Gymreig, which makes eight words, and the Liberal Democrat party is Y Blaid Ryddfrydol Democrataidd. The Bill will allow those two parties to print their full titles in both Welsh and English, which is welcome.

My hon. Friend Mr. MacNeil has referred to the situation in Scotland, which the Bill does not specifically address. The legal status of Scots Gaelic requires an amendment to the Bill, and perhaps we will table such an amendment later in the parliamentary process. I would not dare to speak for Ulster Members, but the recent welcome encouragement for Ulster Scots might call for the extension of the facility to the north of Ireland. Although that point has a particular local character, it is serious. I regret the fact that the good practice on bilingualism in Wales is not replicated elsewhere in the Bill. The Bill contains provisions relating to languages other than English, but perhaps the Government will consider that particular point on the descriptions.

I want to make one more point about language, which concerns the term annibynnwr, or independent. I have no truck with political correctness, but there are people who would contend that annibynnwr is gender specific. It means "the independent man" rather than "the independent person"—annibynwraig refers to an independent woman. The situation could be easily resolved by the use of the adjectival form annibynnol, which avoids the gender issue, and I commend that construction to the Government.

In Wales, annibynnwr is likely to be associated in the public mind not with an independent member of a council, or, for that matter, an independent Member of the House of Commons, but with a member of the Union of Welsh Independents. In my part of Wales, the Presbyterian Church of Wales predominates—I am a Calvinistic Methodist—and in more sectarian times the term Annibynnwr had a more unkind usage. As a child, I remember reciting:

"Methodistiaid eistedd lawr

Annibynnwyr ar y llawr".

Freely translated, it means that the Methodists have the pews and the Independents have to sit on the floor, to which the Independents would sometimes reply:

"Annibynnwyr eistedd lawr

Methodistiaid ar y llawr", which suggests that Methodists should sit on the floor. That is a digression, but the link between annibynnwr and a particular sect should be avoided, so I commend the word, "annibynnol" to the Government.

Finally, Plaid Cymru and, I assume, the SNP call for greater transparency in the funding of political campaigns in Wales. I want to see clearer enforcement of the use of accounting units. That point does not specifically affect my party, because we campaign only in Wales. However, other parties campaign in Wales and across the UK, and there is a temptation—I will only call it that—to spend campaign money in Wales but account for it elsewhere. I hope not. Surely the enforcement of clearer accounting units would deal with that. Greater accuracy and transparency can only be good for the political process in Wales.

Individual registration has been mentioned by several hon. Members, notably Peter Viggers. I note my party's support for the Electoral Commission's standpoint; we would want individual registration to be introduced as soon as possible.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak in this important debate. It is a great pleasure to follow Hywel Williams. I appreciated his in-depth description of the Welsh language terms that we use in Wales.

I welcome the Bill. I am anxious that the fear of fraud does not overwhelm its other objectives, which are access to voting for all and the highest possible turnout, and I congratulate the Minister of State on the efforts that she has made to try to strike that balance. In my constituency, the turnout was 70 per cent. at the last election; that is a good turnout and one of the best in Wales. When I was first elected in 1997, the turnout was 80 per cent. I think that that 10 per cent. drop is echoed in most constituencies. It is therefore important that we do all that we possibly can to encourage people to vote, and I welcome the parts of the Bill that apply to that.

The electoral registration officer in Cardiff has always had a good record in getting as many people as possible on to the register. During the last election campaign, when we called on houses in multiple occupation I was struck by the fact that the individuals who were there matched the people who were supposed to be living in the household. My hon. Friend Chris Bryant, who knocked on many of those doors with me, will agree that it was a very good register. I welcome the extra powers that the officer will have as a result of the Bill.

However, I am worried about certain aspects of the Bill, including the proposals on individual registration. I accept that the term "head of the household" is outdated, and it is unfortunate that it is used, but moving to an individual registration system could have a detrimental effect on the number of people on the register. Young people, particularly students and those living in houses in multiple occupation, may miss out when the so-called head of the household registers the whole family. We must be careful in moving down this track. Although ideally it is probably the best solution, in practice it may mean that we lose many more people from the electoral register. My hon. Friend Chris Ruane mentioned the millions who are already missing, and we must bear that in mind. I am glad that the Government are approaching this cautiously by carrying out pilots, and I hope that they will monitor them carefully.

I am pleased that electors will be able to register to vote much nearer to the day of the election, but I am concerned about changing the deadline for applications for postal votes from six to 11 days. I understand the reasoning behind that—it gives more time to check that fraud does not take place—but there is a danger that lots of people may lose their vote. For example, how would somebody who was admitted to hospital at the last minute get an emergency postal vote? In the 11 days before the last vote, there were numerous examples in my constituency of people phoning up wanting to get an emergency postal vote because of illness. Can anything be done about that?

Given the huge advances in technology, it seems wrong that 11 days are required to process a postal vote. Surely there must be a quicker way of doing it while ensuring the safety of the vote. We should not cut out those people who need postal votes at the last minute for reasons beyond their control. I am pleased that the Government are supporting postal voting, which has extended the franchise and improved people's participation enormously. The nature of people's families today, and the number of people who have caring responsibilities, not only for children but for elderly people, makes it essential to have a postal voting system, and I am pleased that the Minister has said that that option will always be available.

I should like at this point to pay tribute to someone in my constituency, Wendy Laing, who worked tirelessly to encourage people to vote and who sadly died earlier this month.

I am concerned about a couple of issues that arise when electors have to sign for their ballot paper at the polling station. I am sure that other Members have experienced the situation whereby at some point in the day there is a huge rush of people wanting to get in and vote. Has the Minister thought about the practical implications of having to sign for one's ballot paper at the same time as one goes in to vote? The only purpose of signing for one's ballot paper is so that it can be checked if there is a query, and that depends on having individual signatures at the time of registration. We have to try to make the system simpler. During my last count, an hour was spent poring over hundreds of votes because the marks were not clear. Torches were sent for and the ballot papers were held up to the light—at the request of my opponent's agent, I might say—to establish that the votes were legitimate. The hour while those votes were studied was very frustrating, and it seemed to me that there should be a system that would do away with such a situation.

Another concern regarding signing for the ballot paper is the possibility that electors might feel that there is some doubt about the secrecy of the ballot paper if they have to sign for it first.

What will be the position of somebody who cannot read and write, as a significant number of adults cannot, when they go to vote? If we are able to encourage them to go to vote—I accept that many of them may not do so—what can we do to give them privacy so that they are not embarrassed about the fact that they cannot find their name? I have had the experience of trying to encourage such people to vote and trying to explain how the ballot paper will look and that one need only put a cross on it where one wishes. I am sure that people from all parties have been through that process. If we say to them as soon as they get there, "You've got to publicly sign for your ballot paper", that might discourage one of the more disadvantaged groups in our society from playing their part in the democratic process. They should not be put off by the fact that they cannot read or write. I hope that the Minister will think about the implications of that.

I welcome the steps to improve access, particularly taking children into polling stations and the voting booth so that they can learn the habit of voting early on, because there is a danger that they may never get into that habit. I know canvassers who have gone into houses to sit with children while their parents are driven to vote and others who have looked after children in a car while their parents voted. The proposal is therefore eminently sensible and will be good for children and democracy.

I welcome the opportunity that the Bill provides to tackle many of the barriers facing disabled people when they register to vote, especially the introduction of a system that enables the maximum number of disabled people to vote unaided and in privacy. As was said earlier, disabled people expect to have the same range of places in which to vote as able-bodied people. They need to be able to go into the polling station as well as to get a postal vote.

Other steps, which are not included in the Bill, should be taken to increase participation. I support many of the proposals that have been mentioned for increasing the number of people on the electoral register. I believe that the voting age should be lowered to 16 so that people get into the habit of voting when they are young and still in school, where they can discuss the issues in a group. I hope that voting young would set a voting pattern for them for the rest of their lives.

I believe that voting in Westminster elections should be more proportional so that electors feel that their votes count. Again, that would help to increase participation. I do not support compulsory voting. It is up to us as politicians to make electors believe that there is a reason to vote. That, too, would increase participation.

We can do many things to increase participation but one of the most important is making our politics relevant to people. We can do many things in the House, through the way in which we operate and practise politics in our day-to-day work to try to reach out to people. That is as important as all the issues that the Bill covers.

I suspect that we are discussing a subject about which all hon. Members believe themselves to be experts. We all have our experiences of it. I have been a candidate in 21 elections and successful in 20—such is the life of a politician in Northern Ireland. I have participated in elections under three different voting systems and witnessed numerous changes in electoral law.

I broadly welcome the Government's intentions in the Bill but, like many others, I believe that it is too modest by far and that they will be forced to revisit some of the issues before too long. I join other hon. Members in welcoming the role that the Electoral Commission will play. It has played a significant role in Northern Ireland. Its contribution, not least in funding for political parties' policy development, has been especially helpful for the smaller parties in the United Kingdom. The Electoral Commission plays a complementary role to the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland. The whole of Northern Ireland is under one electoral officer and his staff.

Like several hon. Members, I feel strongly that good registration is the key to the Bill's three main purposes. I fear that the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland is not properly resourced to do the job that it needs to do. Many of us have experiences of forms that are sent out but never followed up. If a form is not returned, all too often, the Electoral Office makes no second attempt to get it. It is a matter of the resources that are available to it and the staff whom it can employ for that purpose. Significant work needs to be done on that.

As I see it, the Bill's three main purposes are: access to voting for all; the highest possible turnout, and the lowest possible fraud. As I said in an earlier intervention, those can be competing aims. The aspiration for a more accurate and fuller register is one aspect that the three purposes have in common but many other facets constitute competing aims.

In Northern Ireland, we are, ironically, at a more advanced stage because of the high level of voting fraud. Full details can be found in the report on this subject by the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs. Northern Ireland formerly experienced voter fraud on a massive scale, constituting systematic abuse of the electoral system, which ultimately led to the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002. Most of us who witnessed the resultant elections believe that, although there may be some outstanding issues, especially in relation to postal voting, the legislation has broken the back of electoral fraud in Northern Ireland. I therefore say to those who experience similar circumstances to those that existed in Northern Ireland, that I perceive the 2002 Act as at least part of the remedy to the problems. However, ultimately, hon. Members will have to gauge the extent to which electoral fraud is a problem in Britain and decide whether they need to look to the remedies that were used in Northern Ireland.

Lessons can be learned from our experience in Northern Ireland. Fraud, even on a small scale, can change the outcome of elections.

Changing the law on fraud appears to have had a political impact in Northern Ireland in that the hon. Gentleman's party has done rather better than in previous elections. Was the Act significant in that respect?

The rise of Democratic Unionist party was irresistible and, no matter what the voting system or the electoral law, the party would, like the cream, have come to the top.

A significant number of people who were previously on the electoral register were removed from it at the time of the new registration and the personal identifiers. The bulk of those who were removed should not have been on the electoral register; they had registered more than once. As has been said, when subsequent registrations took place, there was a further significant fall in the number of people registered. I do not blame that on the 2002 Act, except for the requirement for an annual return of the registration form. The Government properly took steps to change that. I believe that that will steady the numbers on the register.

It is one thing to fill out a detailed electoral registration form to include, for example, a national insurance number. Some of the anxieties that have been expressed in the Chamber about the introduction of the national insurance number as an identifier are unfounded. That has not been a problem in Northern Ireland and it has assisted in reducing fraud. I accept colleagues' value judgment about whether they believe that the problem is so great that they need to introduce that personal identifier, but I believe that most people can be expected to cope with its introduction and that of the signature, the date of birth and other elements on the form every three or four years. However, the number of people who register will decrease if they are expected to do it every year, especially in years when they do not expect an election. In Northern Ireland, one can never be sure whether an election will come along, and people can easily get caught out. But if the register could be improved by better work being done at the Electoral Office, that could offset some of the losses that undoubtedly occur if we make it more difficult for people to register by increasing the amount of work that they have to do.

The Bill also contains a proposal to move the deadline for registration closer to the date of an election. I note, however, that Northern Ireland would be exempt from that measure. Can we have an explanation as to why that should be so?

Does my hon. Friend agree that one way of finding out whether the level of registration is low is by canvassing during the election period? Therefore, the closer to the election that one can register, the better. It is amazing that this measure should not apply to Northern Ireland. It seems bizarre that it should apply elsewhere, but not to the Province.

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Most of us recognise that, although we might like it to be different, most people out there do not live politics to the same extent that we do in the House. Most people discover that there is to be an election only when the television hype begins, and that is when they start to think about whether they are entitled to vote. The rest of the kingdom will enjoy the benefits that the Government have drafted in the Bill, and we should look again at the position in Northern Ireland. I recognise that the additional time required for security checks in relation to postal votes is such that we need to be careful about the cut-off date, but it is important that Northern Ireland should benefit as much as other parts of the United Kingdom in regard to registration.

My colleagues and I support the minimum age for candidacy being lowered from 21 years to 18, and we look forward to young colleagues joining us to reduce the average age in the House. The Liberal Democrats' desire to reduce the voting age to 16 is not one that I would support, however. That would not be a sensible step for the House to take.

Clause 57 relates to the protection of donors to political parties in Northern Ireland. Most of the parties are satisfied that we have not yet reached the stage at which it is safe to publish the names of such donors without their fearing that they might become a target because of their political views. My party has consistently put forward the view, however, that while we may not yet have reached that stage, there is no good reason why there should not be a requirement for Northern Ireland political parties to report to the commission the donations that they have received. That arrangement would fall short of what is happening elsewhere in the United Kingdom, but it would be an improvement on the present situation. There is sufficient trust in the commission to maintain that confidentiality for us to have a higher level of accountability without leaving the arrangement completely open-ended.

I have given a broad welcome to the Bill. I believe that there is value in having individual registration. That is the conclusion that comes from the Northern Ireland experience and it is the view of the Electoral Commission. I believe that, ultimately, the Government will be forced to go in that direction. Like many others, however, I fear that this will probably be the best opportunity for them to do it.

I have also read the reasoned amendment tabled by the Conservatives. As a general principle, my colleagues and I believe that if a piece of legislation is deficient, that in itself is no reason not to give it a Second Reading. It is, however, a very good reason to try to change it in Committee. There is sufficient good in the Bill to enable us to give it the benefit of the doubt on Second Reading, although we hope that it will be improved in Committee. Ultimately, we can also look at it again on Report and Third Reading.

In general, the Government are on the right road with this Bill, even if it has not quite got to the destination that I would like it to reach. I want to deal with the problems of under-registration and fraud. I was a member of the Joint Select Committee that produced the report on those issues earlier this year. There is no doubt that the present system produces results that are unfair and biased. They are biased against people who live in inner cities, against people who are black or Asian, against young people and against people who happen to live in houses of multiple occupation. That in itself should condemn the present system and we should do whatever we can to reform it.

The problems of fraud exist. They are not as widespread as some sections of the media would have us believe, but where they occur they are serious and we must deal with them. However, I do not believe that we should do that by going back to the old system of applying for postal votes, rather than allowing people to have them on demand. That would disfranchise an awful lot of people by making it more difficult for them to vote. Neither do I believe that we should have all-postal vote elections. People should have a choice between voting by post or in person, and that choice should be made easy by providing them with the opportunity to place a simple tick on the electoral registration form.

As a matter of principle, I favour the use of personal identifiers. I accept that we must get this right, so I support the pilot schemes that the Government are proposing. However, we must also make other fundamental changes to the system alongside the introduction personal identifiers. If we only introduced personal identifiers, that would simply reduce voter registration still further, which would exacerbate the problem even more.

The Opposition have talked about the accuracy of the register, and I accept that we need an accurate register in the sense that anyone who is not entitled to be on it should not be on it. However, there are two sides to that coin—it also has to be accurate in the sense that anyone who is entitled to be on it should be on it. We must get both those issues right.

I believe that eventually we will be able to move to a system involving a national register of residents that will transfer over to a voters' register with virtually complete accuracy. That is one of the reasons why I support the Government's proposals on ID cards. Such a system would provide the necessary proof of identity. It would also save money, in that the work that the electoral registration officers currently do would no longer be necessary. Before we get there, however, we have the opportunity to make some changes to the present system.

I accept that doing more canvassing might be beneficial, but it is not the only solution. Last year, before the Select Committee produced its report, members of the Select Committee on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister went to Australia to look at the system there. Australia claims to have a voter registration system that is 98 per cent. accurate. People there were incredulous when we told them that we wrote to every household every year, irrespective of whether the household had changed, and that we concentrated those efforts into a three or four-month period.

That does not happen in Australia, which relies on other organisations—such as the driving licence agency, local colleges, the post office and various utility companies—to give information to the electoral commissioners about changes in household information, such as whether someone had reached 18 years of age. The registration officers then chase up the people whose circumstances have changed and alter their position on the register accordingly. In other words, they concentrate throughout the year on the 15 or 20 per cent. of households that change each year, rather than writing to everyone over three or four months, irrespective of whether there had been any changes. That seems to be a much more sensible system.

We probably could not move to such a system all at once, and I note the comments of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives—SOLACE—which would like us to move to a system under which information would come in from various sources and people's position on the register changed accordingly, without the need to send them a form. That might ultimately be the system that we need, and perhaps the Government should consider consulting on that sort of change in our arrangements. In the meantime, we can go some of the way, and I am pleased that the Bill does that.

I am pleased that clause 9 requires registration officers to take

"all steps that are necessary", while clause 63 deals with encouraging electoral participation. There has been doubt among electoral registration officers about whether they have such powers and whether they could be accused of political bias if they went out to undertake electoral registration drives. This provision will remove that problem once and for all.

I am also pleased that clause 9 provides a right to inspect any records. We want to make it absolutely clear that that does not simply mean the records of the relevant local authority; it means the records of any local authority and of central Government, whether they be driving licences or TV licences, and so on. The provision goes beyond that to others, such as registered social landlords, arm's length management organisations, housing associations, the Post Office and private sector organisations such as utilities.

We ought to look very widely indeed to ensure that we can collect as much information as possible so that we get a very accurate database. Of course, we may need to undertake canvassing as a boost to that, to ensure its accuracy and to fill any gaps and loopholes. We can get a lot of the information that we need to establish a much more accurate register from all those other sources.Those organisations should not simply have to respond to a request for information from an electoral registration officer—they should have a duty to provide. We should consider how to frame such a provision so that the registration officer has a duty to get the information and the organisations have a duty to provide it.

As we move through the CORE system— co-ordinated online record of electors—to what is effectively a national register drawn up at local level, registration officers should have a duty to pass on to other registration officers information about people who leave their areas, so that when people move house they transfer from one register to another. That is something else that we should consider building into the system. I am therefore very much in favour of the formulation of a national register, even if the work is done locally. The idea in clause 61 of having national standards is a very good one, as there are far too many different practices. I am generally a great supporter of letting local authorities get on with the job, but in this case we are dealing with a register that will form the base for voting at national elections, so we must have national standards.

In some authorities, but not in others, people are taken off the register if they do not return a form for two years in succession. In some authorities, people are taken off only if they cannot be cross-matched with the council tax register. We must put such examples in a national context so that the same situation is dealt with similarly in each electoral registration area. Westminster council has a system of producing poll cards when the register comes out in February, which gives people an indication of whether they are likely to be able to vote at the next election. That, again, is something we could consider for a national standard.

Clause 61 refers to the possibility of the Electoral Commission asking electoral registration officers locally to do returns on their performance at registration. We should consider making that an annual requirement. Every officer would have to produce an annual return on how well they think they are doing and what percentage of qualified people they think they are getting to register in their areas. There is an awful lot that we can do to build on the current system, but perhaps we should consult on even more fundamental change in the future.

Briefly, I want to pick up on the issue of extremist parties, as well as whether we are right to consider the issue of the level of the deposit or whether we might be better looking at the suggestion made by those on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench—I do not always agree with them—about the number of assenters on a form. There was a bad case in my constituency at a local election two or three years ago, where the British National party got people to sign up on false pretences. People thought that they were signing some sort of petition, only to find that they had signed the electoral registration form.

We might be able to deal with that issue. I understand that once the form has been accepted, it is not possible to cancel the candidacy, even if someone has persuaded people wrongly to assent to the form. Perhaps that is something else we can have a look at. We should consider whether assenters ought not to give their voter ID number when they do the assent, so that we would be quite clear about which people were assenting to which party—it would be more public if people did that.

To summarise, I believe that, ultimately, we have to have a very different way of formulating our election registers if we are to make them accurate and ensure that we have a proper democratic process in operation. The Bill will significantly improve the current system. There is an opportunity here, which I hope we pursue further to make even more improvements in Committee and on Report.

I am pleased to speak in the debate as I am such a heavy user of electoral registration officers' services, having run in three different elections—local, regional and national—over the past three years.

My hon. Friend Mr. Tyrie rightly emphasised the issue of credibility. Credibility is important when someone is running in a parliamentary seat where the majority is just 75 votes.

The issues that came up sporadically in my election included personation: people turned up at the polling station to find that they had already voted or to be told that they had been provided with a postal voting form, although they were not aware of it. That example emphasises the importance of creating such credibility. Although I am sure that the result of my election was accurate, I am concerned that the credibility of elections is being undermined in such a way.

The Minister, in introducing the debate, emphasised the importance of the legislation in the context of concerns about fraud in UK elections. Although some Members have suggested that the process of election is not one in which we face much fraudulent activity, it is worrying when the Electoral Reform Society says that there is significant fraud in UK elections. In those circumstances, the introduction of the legislation is welcome, but there are clearly real concerns, especially over how postal voting and all-postal voting elections have proceeded.

I took the opportunity to sit in on the appeal that Lord Justice Woolf heard on the grossly fraudulent behaviour in Blackburn. That emphasises the fact that we need work to be done now to provide confidence in our system of election. I am concerned that it is proposed that there should be pilot schemes only at this stage, because it strikes me that personal identifiers are common to many people in our community, who find themselves signing many different documents from day to day.

I welcome the Minister's comments on the provision of £17 million for resourcing the work of electoral registration officers because that is the best way to ensure that we have the best quality of electoral registration, rather than going through a pilot scheme process. I understand the concerns expressed about the tremendous shortfall in registration, which, as other Members have said, is a very important issue in London. In my constituency and the neighbouring constituency of Croydon, North, it appears that 17,000 eligible people have not found their way on to the register.

The Minister said that she was concerned about a tremendous fragmentation in registration in London. I was not entirely sure that I understood her point about the Mayor having some role in the process, because during Greater London authority elections he, or the GLA, is reliant on the work of the individual boroughs. Certainly, the Mayor must have a role in publicity and advertising the importance of registration ahead of the election, but what else might his role encompass?

I have noted the point about being able to secure postal votes only 11 days ahead of an election. While that is a positive step, we must also recognise that the huge spike in activity ahead of the election will put real stresses and strains on electoral registration officers. From my experience in the general election, I believe that we should also take cognisance of the fact that those postal votes find their way to electors very slowly, with the consequent problem of returning them in time. Extra emphasis must be put on effectively resourcing electoral registration officers.

Like other Conservative Members, I am worried about the proposal to reduce the rate at which deposits are lost. Hywel Williams provided us with the useful information that the UK Independence party might benefit most from that proposal. I hope that the Government have not been motivated by a desire to cause even more consternation among Conservatives about being undermined by a party slightly to the right of us.

I am interested in the Bill's proposal to allow for a proper following-up of election expenses up to four months ahead of the election. It is a worthy proposal. When I joined colleagues on a visit to the US, the US politicians to whom I spoke were surprised to find that, in theory, we could spend as much as we wanted until a few weeks before the election. The proposal is important and I hope that there will be a practical means of ensuring an increase in the very low level of expenses allowed if the period is extended to four months. I will be interested to hear an explanation of how that will work when the timing of general elections is less certain.

I have never quite understood how this country, without fixed-term Parliaments, can have a period running up to an election when only the Prime Minister has the faintest idea of when he plans to call that election. How will we know whether we will be caught by the four-month period until after the fact?

I am grateful for that point, although I appreciate that the Liberal Democrats are very much in favour of fixed-term Parliaments. When the Minister winds up, I shall be interested to hear how the process can work effectively.

Other Liberal Democrat Members referred to the comments of Richard Mawrey QC about the use of the postal vote system. One of his comments that was not reported earlier in the debate was:

"Short of writing 'Steal me' on the envelopes, it is hard to see what more could be done to ensure their coming into the wrong hands."

Many Conservative Members, as well as those in the other place, argued against the Government rushing into a large number of pilot schemes for all-postal voting. It is fair to say, however, that out of a desire to promote the maximum turnout in elections came a strong rush in the wrong direction. I very much hope that the Government will think again about the appropriateness of not moving much more quickly to a widespread use of personal identifiers.

I appreciate the view that it is important to encourage the greatest level of registration. I referred earlier to the significant shortfall in registration in my local borough of Croydon. I am sure that a large amount of that under-registration involves black and ethnic minority communities. It is therefore very important for the registration issue to be addressed.

Some will argue that they oppose personal identifiers because of the risk of depressing registration and, therefore, voter turnout. As Mr. Devine said in his excellent maiden speech, however, it is also a case of politicians being straightforward with electors, and about the type of politics that they pursue. It is too easy for politicians to move into a process of false petitioning, or false consultation, and not to talk genuinely to residents and electors. It is clearly incumbent on politicians and the Government as a whole to ensure that it is indeed worthwhile for people to take part in elections, especially at local and regional level. It is often far too easy to agree with electors who say that it does not make much difference who is in control at local government level, given the increase in central Government powers over local government over the years. Another argument is that the London assembly has very few powers over the Mayor.

I feel that I must vote against this important proposal because of the weakness in regard to personal identifiers. I also feel that it is incumbent on us as politicians to make it worthwhile for our residents to be able to vote in elections.

I am very pleased to be able to speak in the debate. The Bill contains many positive measures. Its aims are set out clearly: to make the registration process more accessible, to enhance the security of voting, and to improve the administration of the electoral system.

Like many other hon. Members, I am concerned about turnout, which in this year's general election was 61 per cent.—the third lowest since 1847, I understand. That is shocking. In my constituency, turnout was 48 per cent. I was quite pleased that it had increased a bit since 2001, but it is a poor figure nevertheless, and I shall do my best to encourage people to vote in the next general election.

As my hon. Friend Mr. Devine made clear in his maiden speech, turnout is an issue for all politicians. It is not an issue for a particular party or group of society; it is an issue for us all. I want to tell the House about a gentleman whom I met outside the polling station on 5 May. He rushed up to me and said that this was the first time he had voted in 25 years. I was with a colleague, who said to me "Gosh, that is very impressive. This guy has actually gone out to vote, having not voted for 25 years. It must be due to the strength of the political arguments."

I had met the gentleman the day before, when I was campaigning in Tesco. We had a long exchange. The gentleman was called Mr. Hirst. As many Members will know, Mr. Hirst was a prisoner who pursued a case against the Government to enforce his human right to vote. Earlier this year, following an appeal, the European Court of Human Rights upheld that human right. The Government are now considering their response to its decision. I think it is appropriate to give certain groups of prisoners the vote. I know that this is not Government policy, but I personally believe that it is wrong to have a blanket approach. We had to change the law earlier to allow those on remand to vote.

I was glad that the Minister spoke about social exclusion, and the democratic deserts that exist in some parts of the country.

I strongly support some clauses of the Bill. I have a problem in my constituency: there are large gaps in my electoral register. I am very pleased, therefore, that electoral administrators will have a duty to produce a complete register, and will be able to look at information and data from other organisations. The chief executive of Kingston upon Hull city council wrote to me this week saying that the university in my constituency was not very keen to disclose information about students who had moved into the constituency. I hope that the Bill will enable my university and others to feel confident about sharing such information in future.

I am very pleased that the Bill encourages children to accompany parents and carers when they go to vote; that is a very good message to send to our young people. I also support the personal identifiers proposal. It is right and proper that we pilot that proposal, and I hope that it will be conducted regionally. We will get a much clearer view of how the proposal will work if the pilot includes inner cities and rural areas. I am deeply concerned, however, about the reduction of the deposit from 5 per cent. to 2 per cent. As others have said, such a reduction will benefit parties to which most Members will feel uncomfortable about giving any benefit, notably the British National party.

Clause 20 brings our law up to date from 1695, when the candidacy age of 21 was first set. I am very pleased that we are now lowering the age to 18, but there is an anomaly in the clause. There is a difference between parliamentary and local mayoral qualifying dates, and in the former case one must have attained the age of 18 on the date of nomination, rather than on the polling date. That anomaly needs to be sorted out. Our electoral law needs to be very straightforward and easy to understand, in order to encourage people to engage in the process.

I am very disappointed that the Government have not decided to lower the voting age to 16. As I said, the average turnout nationwide at the last general election was 61 per cent., but the average among 18 to 34-year-olds was 37 per cent. That is a real problem. For almost two decades, groups and organisations such as the British Youth Council, the Children's Rights Alliance for England and, more recently, the Youth Parliament, have sought to reduce the voting age to 16. There is cross-party support for such a provision, and I hope that the Government will consider introducing it. We should consider the participation rights set out in article 12 of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, which the UK ratified in 1991.

I give five reasons why people should be able to vote at 16, the first of which concerns equality of expression. Not letting 16 and 17-year-olds express their political views through the ballot box gives the impression that we do not really care about what they have to say, and that their views are not valid. That clearly is not right. Sixteen and 17-year olds already play a very important part in their communities and in their work. The second reason is consistency. As we all know, 16-year-olds can pay taxes, join the Army, leave home, get married and claim social security benefits—so why should they not be allowed to vote?

The third reason concerns citizenship. The Labour Government introduced citizenship classes into secondary schools, so that all children up to the age of 16 can learn why citizenship is important and why they should have a role in the civic life of their community. It is therefore ridiculous that on reaching 16—just when we have learned why we should get involved in such matters—we have to wait two years to exercise our right to vote. The fourth reason concerns the moral right to vote. As politicians, we make decisions about young people all the time, and by not allowing them to express their views about us, we are doing them a great disservice. Here, we should also remember the principle of no taxation without representation.

I turn now to the question of raising turnout. When the Electoral Commission examined lowering the voting age to 16, it said that one problem is that if we did so it would reduce turnout even further. I have with me a report of a local election held in Vienna on Sunday, at which 16 and 17-year-olds were allowed to vote for the first time. The turnout of 16 and 17-year-olds was higher than that of other age groups, particularly 18 to 34-year-olds.

The Electoral Commission's report has been mentioned, but I believe that flawed information and evidence was used. The commission claimed to have received 1,000 individual responses and 6,500 group responses to its consultation on reducing the voting age to 16, which were two to one in favour of the age reduction. However, it was claimed that the views of those people were skewed because they were, by nature, a self-selecting group, but I think that that logic does not stand up to much examination. A pool of 234 young people was said to be divided on whether to have the vote at 16 and it was also claimed that turnout would go down if 16 and 17-year-olds were included in the voting.

Over recent years, many different organisations and projects have examined the issue and have taken into consideration much larger groups than the 234 young people to whom the Electoral Commission spoke. The "Why Vote-Why Not?" project of 2002 consulted more than 1,500 young people and the British Youth Council consultation in 2000 consulted 10,000. Save the Children UK consulted more than 500 young people in England in 1999 and the Children's Society carried out a research project in the same year.

If we are a modernising Government—as the present Labour Government have been in many ways—we should consider introducing an amendment to reduce the voting age to 16. Across the Floor of the House, any Member who considers themselves a constitutional moderniser—many hon. Members in their places today—should rally to the cause and support any appropriate amendments to that effect.

It is a particular pleasure to follow Ms Johnson, as she and I were political opponents in the constituency of Brentwood and Ongar in 2001. We have all had a glimpse today of how formidable a political opponent she can be, and I am sure that she will prove an enormous success in the House. She was very brave, furthermore, to take on the Government over giving the vote to prisoners.

I did not entirely follow the hon. Lady's logic over giving the vote to 16-year-olds. She seemed to say that people at 16 pay taxes, but so do some young people at 14 or even five, insofar as people with money to spend purchase items that are subject to value added tax. It seems an entirely phoney argument to me. It does not really matter whether it is 17 or 16, but there must be an age at which all the rights accrue. There cannot be a halfway house in which people get part rights and no responsibilities. Some young people are in the Army at 16, but they cannot stand on the front line. I find the idea of child soldiers at the front line repugnant and I do not like the idea of 16-year-olds entering into credit agreements. The argument is misplaced, but it was advanced powerfully.

I regret the way in which the debate has seemed to offer us two choices: individual registration or increasing the turnout. It seems somehow that if we opt for individual registration, we are sacrificing voter registration and turnout. I simply do not accept that, but I believe that we must do two important things.

First, the Bill must make the electoral system entirely proof from systematic and sustained fraud. Secondly, it must reassure the public that they can trust the electoral system. Members have referred to the MORI poll, which showed for the first time that people believe that it is now easier to commit electoral fraud and are concerned about it.

I have been involved in elections for nearly 40 years. In the past few years, people have become increasingly worried about the safety of our electoral system. My electoral registration officer in Brentwood is Mr. Jim Stevens, who tells me that since the general election more than 400 people have returned their postal vote registrations because they do not want to continue voting in that way. In the general election, a number of people were worried that their postal vote would somehow be taken away from them or rendered illegitimate.

My hon. Friend Mr. Heald talked about observers from Ukraine and other democracies who had witnessed our general election. They produced a report, "Democratic Institutions, and Human Rights Mission", and we would do well to listen to some of their remarks. The report mentioned the introduction in 2000 of "postal voting on demand", and it said that the lack of an application process

"demonstrated the vulnerability of any trust-based electoral process".

Until the past few years, our electoral system was trust based. We must try to find a way to rebuild trust in our system.

Much has been said about the case in Birmingham, and I shall not repeat any quotations that have been offered to the House. I do not mean my remarks in any way to be a barb for any Labour Members in the Chamber, or for their party in general, but one passage in the electoral court report into the matter is especially chilling. It states:

"Here we have two wards, some distance apart, in both of which the Labour party organisation has conducted a large and skilful campaign of electoral fraud, using precisely the same techniques in each case. This cannot be a coincidence. But did it go wider? In my view, it does."

It is a shock to realise that our system has become so vulnerable to systematic fraud, but we must accept some of the lessons so eloquently set out by Mr. Robinson. The dilemma is often described as how to strike the balance between security and turnout, but I suspect that few people will be willing to turn out in an election if they do not trust the system.

I believe that the balance to be struck is between sensible security, overreaction, and security against fraud. I shall deal first with security against fraud, which involves the problem of individual registration.

I see no reason not to move towards individual registration. The discussion about whether we should use national insurance numbers was utterly pointless. Sure, we could use some other method—iris recognition, DNA, blood sample, or a person's ability to recite the "Star Trek" cast list.

No.

I am sure that my hon. Friend would qualify in that respect. We have national insurance numbers, and the hon. Member for Belfast, East gave us some wise advice about their use. They would give us a degree of certainty, although I agree with hon. Members who said that we cannot talk about registration without trying to find people to register.

In this day and age, it is ridiculous to have the head of a household signing the register for other household members. We know that the further a person gets away from the family, the less likely it is that he or she will register to vote. That strikes me as wholly unsatisfactory, and one reason why there is such low registration in houses of multiple occupation.

We have seen how easy it has been for various people to register in false names. The Daily Mail, The Sunday Telegraph, Evening Standard and Sky News have reported on that, but it is not being done to get a vote. The reason might be to appear on a register for credit purposes. We know from some work that was undertaken by The Mail on Sunday that at the last general election there were reports of asylum seekers falsely signing up to obtain consumer credit.

A middle-class scam is taking place in many constituencies. Children fly the nest and move on to prosperous jobs. They may move to London. They may move to a part of the city, and not necessarily the most salubrious address. At the same time, mum and dad keep them on the register at home. They do not do that for a sentimental attachment, thinking that one day the children may return. They are on the register for credit ratings and for insurance purposes, to ensure that the children get a better deal. That sort of scam needs to be sorted out. That can be done only by a process of individual registration.

Is there an element of overreaction? There is a suggestion in the White Paper that ballot papers needed to be bar coded. Surely that is pointless. After all, a bar code is only a number. It would add practically nothing to the security of the process. My electoral registration officer points out that that would effectively mean that a limited number of printing companies would be able to produce a ballot paper. We know that there were problems arising from the various pilot schemes. My ERO sensibly suggests that the bar code should be printed on the declaration. It is possible to do that with the software that most EROs have. That simple idea is more practical in offering real security than moving to something that will cause many problems.

I lend my support to the suggestion that problems will stem from clause 29. It is absurd that anyone could work out exactly when a general election could take place. The change in the 2001 election from May to June, because of the foot and mouth outbreak, is a clear example. I thought that the last set of elections were at least honest. If political parties are daft enough to spend money before an election period, that is up to them. Spending will not be avoided. It will merely be put underground.

Perhaps we have an unrealistic expectation of what is possible. We need to understand that our EROs bring in a bunch of people at election time. EROs understand the situation but sometimes the workers do not. That means that there is a high hurdle. We need to simplify and justify the law. We need to ensure that we place our trust in the electoral system.

Several hon. Members:

rose—

Order. We are rapidly running out of time and many Members are seeking to catch my eye. If Members could see their way to taking less than their allowed 12 minutes, that would be extremely helpful.

The Bill is good and wide-ranging. I have also found out the true identity of Michael Caine, which is given in the explanatory notes. I am not sure whether that affects the right of the celebrity known as Maurice Joseph Micklewhite to anonymous registration.

I was disappointed that the Opposition have decided to divide the House, as their opposition to the Bill seems manufactured. Although several Members have discussed their differences with the Bill, they could by and large be resolved in Committee, as can my concerns about it.

The Bill is a three-legged stool and the Opposition have concentrated on one leg, which they think should be made four or five times as fat as the other two legs. The principle of the three-legged stool—as many people as possible should be able to vote, as many people as possible should actually vote and as few people as possible should abuse the vote—is central to getting electoral registration and participation in elections right. Equal attention to all three criteria is important.

It is right to look at electoral administration, because there are questions about all three legs. It is undoubtedly true that the state of registration is a cause for concern. In some parts of the country, as Members have said, a slow train crash seems to be in progress; in many urban areas, registration is dipping below even the incomplete census figures. Of course, we can only discharge the second leg—electoral balance—if people are registered to vote in the first place and in some of those areas turnout is also low, which means that only a low percentage of a low percentage of people are voting. Unless we proceed carefully we shall undermine confidence in the whole system, as we attempt to deal with the problems by shepherding in abuses along with proper measures to make registration easier and more straightforward. It is important that we understand the interlinked nature of all three elements in dealing with electoral registration and turnout.

As Mr. Pickles said, in the past our system was based on a high degree of trust. We do not face problems of trust only in postal voting but also in the whole system—that a person is who they say they are when they vote and that they vote only once. A personal identifier for individual voting would not solve the problem of people registering for insurance or credit purposes; they would simply sign on the dotted line. In many spheres, we still trust people to say who they are.

Perhaps, in our society, trust is dipping and people feel less inhibited about attempting to obtain electoral advantage by means that would have been seen as venal sins in the past but to some people nowadays are seen merely as venial, if indeed they are considered sins at all. That trust was earned by a system of checks and balances in the ballot, which have mostly stood the test of time. There has not been much abuse of the system over recent years. The public nature of registration and presenting oneself at the polling station have helped. However, modern views about privacy and modern methods of communication present challenges to those checks and balances.

In the past, there has been serious abuse of the UK system. It took successive Acts of Parliament in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s to deal with that, as the history of the frequent and quite startling election petitions of those days testifies. The problem with election petitions was that a retinue of judges, clerks, scribes and assistants descended on a town to investigate when a petition had been lodged by the unsuccessful candidate. The expense of the entire revenue was borne by the unfortunate ratepayers of the borough, with the perverse result that local people became so fed up with the bills that they incurred that they invariably voted for the candidate of the party that had been unseated by the petition. They blamed the losing candidate for bringing misfortune down on their town. That was perhaps an example of getting an element of those three legs wrong. We might reflect today on whether vesting the costs of registration entirely in the hands of local authorities is similarly a problem.

As hon. Members have pointed out, the application of registration activity varies greatly between authorities and on the basis of how local councils allocate funds from their budgets. In that context, I was pleased that the Bill states that the budget for publicity and other activities will be ring-fenced at £17 million. It says that the Government may repay electoral registration officers the cost of activities, such as producing publicity, that are intended to increase participation. Perhaps we need to consider in Committee whether that wording will produce essentially a challenge fund or a peel-off-on-demand fund. I would not like to think that the electoral registration officers who undertake such activity risk using the money that they receive from local authorities.

We still ask some registration officers, by the very nature of the areas for which they are responsible, to undertake enormously greater activity, at far greater public expense, than others who must simply check whether people are still in the same place as they were last year to produce an electoral register that is 98 per cent. or so complete. So we need to have a number of thoughts about the nature of how we fund electoral registration and about the basis of its distribution in the country.

I hope incidentally that increased publicity will include local measures to explain how to vote. The Bill makes provision for children to go into polling booths with parents. That will ensure that some of us no longer have to sit with children while the parent goes into the polling booth as in previous years. It is a good idea to expose children to the very mechanism of voting, which would happen if they went into the polling booths with their parents. Perhaps, in times past, as families tended to eat together, they tended to go to vote together, and parents showed their families how to vote. With less geographical cohesion in our society, first-time voters may receive information on something about which they are about as familiar as travelling to the moon when they first vote.

I certainly have experience of talking to young voters who live in flats—perhaps young mums—who start off the exchange by expressing familiar nostrums about not voting because we are all the same or because it makes no difference, but it becomes apparent pretty early in the conversation that they simply do not know how to vote. No one has told them about it. They do not know how to vote or where to vote. They are afraid that they might be embarrassed or make a mess of it or that the process requires much more knowledge about the system than is the case. Measures to familiarise people with voting are therefore important.

Postal votes are pretty secure once dispatched to a returning officer, but public perception is important. So it is right that we look again at signifiers for both registration and postal votes to ensure that they are more robust but in a way that does not result in the over-complication of registration or in signing for postal votes, so that people simply do not register or, if they are registered, do not cast a vote. Signing on when voting—another provision of the Bill—seems to make an important psychological difference in ensuring that there is a public record and acknowledgement that people are who they claim to be which will stand regardless of how people vote in the privacy of the polling booth.

Frankly, part of the debate has turned in the past on the perceived advantage of different measures for parties. High turnout is alleged to favour Labour and therefore concern has been expressed about measures to improve it. By the same token, proper concerns about securing the integrity of the ballot have been downplayed sometimes because of the view that the imperative was to improve turnout using new means of voting when their integrity was still questioned. In fact, such issues affect all parties equally.

I have some concerns about the Bill, as I have said. I am not sure whether reducing the percentage of the vote necessary to preserve one's deposit is wise. There are discussions on both sides of the argument; but on balance, the preservation of a 5 per cent. limit would be wise. As was mentioned by Mr. Heath, action should be taken in respect of the activity involving national election expense when such things are truly local election expenses. There are several issues that we should examine properly in Committee.

I am sorry that when we are considering such an important matter as the legitimacy of all parties through the electoral process, the message may not go out from the House that all parties are behind change. If everyone agreed with the reasoned amendment, we would have no Bill at all to consider, which would be a most perverse outcome. I hope that the Opposition will even now decide not to divide the House and allow the Bill to go to Committee. We could then discuss the Bill together and send the message on electoral registration and voting that we mean business by ensuring that the electoral system is accessible, usable and secure.

To pick up on the point with which Dr. Whitehead ended his speech, it is important that we have an electoral system that has integrity. Indeed, the first of the Electoral Commission's aims is to promote a system that has integrity. Our discussion of individual registration is at the centre of that. The Government have said that they are willing to conduct pilot schemes, but having listened to the whole of the debate, it would seem sensible, given that this might be our only opportunity to discuss the matter before we have another general election, to consider the situation in Northern Ireland, where a pilot scheme effectively took place. The Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, Ms Harman, talked about evidence-based policy making, so we should analyse what happened there and consider examples of what did and did not work. We should examine the problems and learn from them, instead of holding another set of pilots, because after we had considered the pilots' outcomes, we might not have time to introduce another Bill and could thus find ourselves back here again after the next general election.

The hon. Gentleman talks about using Northern Ireland as an example, but is he aware that in the first year after the introduction of the system, which he suggests could be introduced in the rest of the UK, the number of people on the register fell by 10.5 per cent? In the light of that, would it not be far better to hold pilots to determine how the proposals work before spreading the scheme out to the rest of the country?

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman makes that point. Mr. Robinson said that a significant number of those who disappeared from the register jolly well should have done because they should not have been on it in the first place. Some people were not entitled to vote, some were registered more than once and some entries were fictitious. Measures that have been taken since then have meant that some people who should have been on the register have been put back on it.

I shall not repeat the points that others have made about the letter that the Electoral Commission sent to hon. Members. However, the letter said that commission recognised

"concerns that the initial impact of a . . . switch to individual registration might be a fall in the number of people who register to vote".

The commission also said that it realised, as do my party and I, that a move to individual registration needs to be part of a package. Such a change cannot be made on its own, but must be carried out at the same time as other changes. The importance of registering to vote should be explained to people and electoral registration officers need to be given the duties, powers and resources to carry out their activities to ensure that only those who are not entitled to vote end up disappearing from the register. Mr. Khan makes a valid point, but we should consider what happened elsewhere and take steps at the beginning of the process to avoid problems.

According to the Government, the Bill has three objectives:

"access to voting for all . . . highest possible turnout . . . and . . . lowest possible fraud".

I am worried that we have spent most of the debate considering registration. It is a good thing if everyone who is entitled to vote is on the electoral register, but that misses the point. If we get all the people who are entitled to vote on the register without addressing some of the wider issues—admittedly that might not be possible through the Bill—we will just end up with more people being entitled to vote, but no more people voting and turnout thus going down.

I think that the Minister has said on previous occasions that the mechanical process is not one of the main reasons why people do not vote. Labour Members have said that some 4 million people are not registered to vote, but the sad thing is that the process is not difficult. If someone wants to vote it is not difficult for them to put their name on the register and cast a vote. Depressingly, 4 million of our fellow citizens do not care enough about voting to take relatively simple steps to register. We have just had a general election, but I do not remember millions of people beating down my door because they were outraged that they could not cast a vote. That is what we should be worried about. [Interruption.] Chris Bryant is pulling face, but according to his colleagues millions of people were not able to vote. However, they were not angry about that, and we should be worried that many of our citizens do not think that elections are worth participating in. Perhaps that is because the House has less power, as many of our powers to make laws have gone elsewhere. Many people say that all the parties are the same and so there is not enough reason to vote. We should be concerned about those issues rather than the mechanical details.

Like my party, I support the proposal to allow people to stand for election to the House at 18. It is important to equalise the age at which people can vote and the age at which they can stand for election, but I do not support the proposal to allow people to vote at 16. One has to have a cut-off point, and it has to have some logic. Some say that people can do other things at 16, but that argument does not hold water. One can pay taxes at any age. I accept that someone can join the Army at 16, but they will not be sent to the front line. They can get married, but only with their parents' permission. We have to draw a line somewhere, and if we do not do so at 18—the age at which one becomes an adult—we could end up extending the provision to young teenagers. Voting is a rite of passage into adulthood, so it makes sense to keep the existing limit.

Finally, Dr. Whitehead touched on the issue of funding. Many hon. Members spoke about the duty on electoral registration officers to produce a complete register and their increased responsibilities for door-to-door canvassing, producing publicity and liaising with other organisations to obtain data for databases. That will impose a burden on local authorities, and we cannot simply will the ends unless the means are provided. Although I welcome the £17 million set aside for publicity, that equates to less than £30,000 for each parliamentary constituency and does not relieve the burden on electoral registration officers. Only a few people in local authorities do such work permanently. Many people are hired at peak times, so they are not particularly well trained. Electoral registration is seriously under-resourced, and I sympathise with officers in areas with universities that have a large student population or in areas with a large transient population. It must be difficult to work in such areas, and officers do not always receive the funding and resources that they deserve. National standards for electoral registration are to be implemented, so when the Minister of State talks to the Minister for Local Government she needs to highlight the fact that those activities needed to be financed by funding local government properly. If we put burdens on local councils by giving electoral registration officers a duty to produce a good register without providing them with the resources to do so, we are effectively promising a lot but we will fail to deliver. Moreover, we will not produce an accurate register in more challenging areas.

Some provisions in the Bill are welcome, but unless we address the problem of individual registration and the need for integrity in the voting system we will fail to make progress. My party tabled a reasoned amendment because, as has been said, this may be the only opportunity before the next general election to tackle the problem. We are concerned that the Government are not grabbing that opportunity to introduce a proper system of individual registration.

I welcome the new measures in the Bill relating to registration, and the new powers given to returning officers to improve access to voting and promote participation. A number of my hon. Friends mentioned the increasing difficulties that electoral registration officers have with registration, particularly in inner-city areas. The standard method for many authorities has been the annual canvass, but on its own that is proving increasingly ineffective. In Salford local authority, registration levels vary from 75 to 92 per cent. by constituency. Happily, mine is the constituency at 92 per cent., so I can feel a little more comfortable, but I know that wards in our authority show a level as low as 64 per cent. Clearly, it is cause for concern that one third of households are not registered.

As hon. Members discussed earlier in the debate, we know the groups among which non-registration peaks. In Salford, the election registration officer has difficulty with certain tower blocks near Salford university, where access for the canvass is difficult and where there is a high turnover of occupants, with many students who are registered elsewhere, as has been discussed. Some of the flats are owned by companies, which is a new development, and there are many six-month tenancies, which is a problem when the peak of our registration activity occurs at a certain time of year.

In the debate many of us have acknowledged a crisis in registration. The issue needs addressing in years to come. The measures in the Bill that start to address it are most welcome. Data sharing will be a help, to ensure that electoral registration officers get the most comprehensive data for the register. A number of suggestions were made earlier about agencies that might share data on household occupants, such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, TV Licensing, tax credit agencies, housing associations and arm's length management organisations. I hope that those suggestions for extra sources of data can be followed up and used by local authorities to help them build and improve their registers.

I wholeheartedly agree with the Minister's caution in not making a change to individual registration. We know that, when such a change was made in Northern Ireland, it caused a dip of 10 per cent. in registration. With wards that stand at only 60 per cent., we cannot make a change that would further reduce that figure. In evidence to the Joint Select Committees on electoral registration in 2004–05 the electoral registration officer for Trafford foresaw that

"whole areas of the electorate would not respond" to requests for individual registration, particularly among the groups, including young people, who we know are already the poorest respondents. The electoral registration officer for Salford told me today that in his view individual registration would be like

"a throwback to the poll tax", as it would make registration numbers drop like a stone and not recover for very many years. Those were his words.

It is known that if young people do not register to vote when they attain voting age, they become less and less likely to register and then to vote. I have talked on the doorstep to people in their early 30s who admitted that they have never voted, as if that were a badge of honour. We should not underestimate the problem. It threatens the future legitimacy of our democracy.

On postal votes, I have had substantial experience of leading in local government in all-postal vote pilots. Based on that experience, I have a positive view of that voting method. In Trafford we ran pilots of all-postal voting in 2002 and 2003. In the first pilot, making voting easier by all-out postal voting raised turnout from 33 to 52 per cent. We all felt that once turnout was over 50 per cent. in our local elections, we had more of a mandate and that our decision-making was more legitimate. That is the key issue to balance the other concerns that people have—are we legitimate in what we do in local government?

It is important to point out what we thought were the elements that contributed to the success of those pilots. First, there was a drive by the council to ensure that the new voting procedure worked well for our electors. Then, there was the involvement and support of all political parties, good co-operation from and co-ordination of tasks with Royal Mail, and a simplification of the process by designing a ballot paper that was easy to use, with simple, easy-to-follow instructions.

Finally, publicity issued by local authorities such as information about candidates, an explanation of the councillor's role or even a description of a postal vote's journey is important. My hon. Friend Dr. Whitehead has pointed out the need constantly to explain to people how their vote works and what happens to it, particularly in the case of postal voting. The Bill includes many of those elements: it sets performance standards for local authorities on elections; it gives returning officers and electoral registration officers a new power to encourage participation in the electoral process; and it provides powers to prescribe a different and hopefully simple form of ballot paper.

Although the Bill does not mention this, I hope that it will become routine to co-operate with the Royal Mail on the delivery of an increasing number of postal ballot packs. In my experience of local government, some issues cause problems with all-postal voting. We tried a complicated witness statement in the early pilot, but then we dropped it and did not use it again. A complicated ballot form can also cause problems—the June 2004 ballot form in the north-west for the joint elections was far too complicated for many voters. Local authorities that are less than enthusiastic about postal voting are an issue in my region. For instance, some authorities made it difficult for voters to obtain replacements for lost or spoiled ballot papers. The co-operation of the Royal Mail on deliveries is also important. In one case, less than 1 per cent. of the electorate in a polling district of 600 people voted, which suggests non-delivery of ballot papers.

Setting performance standards for local authorities in elections is a key step forward. I hope that it will gradually change situations in which local authorities are unprepared, are not proactive, have inaccessible or inconvenient polling stations or obstruct postal voters. Our residents, and younger people in particular, need encouragement to register to vote. I welcome the Bill, which will start to ensure that all local authorities perform to the best standard.

I congratulate my hon. Friend Mr. Devine on his excellent maiden speech. He is a welcome addition to this place and I look forward to working with him.

I rise to support the Bill, the necessity for which has recently become clear to me. As a first-time parliamentary candidate at the May election, I was concerned that I encountered so many people who were totally disfranchised. Those people were not illegally resident in the UK, criminals or attempting to opt out of society. Indeed, many of them were not particularly apathetic about the political process. Many of those people had been disfranchised almost by accident. Many of them believed that they were already registered, some had recently moved and found that they had missed the deadline to sign up and others had simply mislaid the letter from the registration officer and let the whole prospect of an election slip from their minds.

In the same way as we have a problem persuading people to save for a pension, we also find it difficult to persuade people to register to vote. Although turnout at the previous election was particularly low at 61 per cent., that hides a much harder statistic. A survey by the British Election Study team found that turnout among those who earned less than £15,000 a year, which I accept is an arbitrary figure, was as low as 49 per cent., compared with 68 per cent. among those who earned more than £15,000 a year. The difference is roughly 20 percentage points, which is unacceptable.

I am not naive enough to believe that any of the provisions in the Bill will actually increase the number of people who want to vote, which is a job for politicians rather than for this type of legislation. The need to inspire the population into wanting to vote is a debate for a different time and place, but it is clear that we should not place barriers in the way of people who may want to vote.

The Bill will go some way to addressing the problems that I encountered while campaigning in Dundee, West. It begins with the establishment of the co-ordinated on-line record of electors, which is commonly known as CORE. If we were to mention to our constituents that there is no central record of the electoral register or that the various different registers are almost entirely incompatible, many of them would find it hard to believe. It is sensible to co-ordinate the different systems, especially in the light of the lack of coterminosity between constituencies in Scotland. It may seem simple to conduct such co-ordination, but the process is rather complicated, so I am grateful that the CORE scheme has a long history.

In 2004, the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs said that it was disappointed by the progress of the CORE scheme, despite its long existence as an idea, but reaffirmed that it had widespread support. I believe that to be true; it is the scheme best suited to address these problems. Standardised electoral registers will benefit political parties, people who move around often, and electoral officers who need to use the system.

It is believed that the system will lead to individual registration. All that I can say to that is, "The sooner the better." An ideal situation would be one in which someone can to enrol on the electoral register when they are 18 and their enrolment is kept active throughout their life, so that their only responsibility is to inform the CORE keeper—a term that reminds me somewhat of a science fiction movie—of their change of address. That would enable people to be on the register even if they forget to re-register in new places, and would make the system much more sustainable.

I am also of the opinion that this form of registration will hopefully lead to, or at least encourage, large-scale registration among the group who are most disenfranchised under the current situation: recent attainers. It is worrying that so many 18 to 24-year-olds are not registered. Evidence suggests that recent attainers are less likely to be registered if the head of household is not registered. Many recent attainers are being disfranchised not so much because they lack a desire to be involved in democracy as because of a system that bases one's vote on the head of a household filling in a form. I hope that that will eventually be sorted out. I see the CORE scheme as a first step to achieving some form of individual registration, and welcome it as such.

I understand the need for the scheme to be suitably piloted first, but I would welcome some guidance from the Minister as to how long the pilot schemes will last. I would be more comfortable with a defined period of piloting to be laid down in the Bill. It need not be set in stone, but it would at least provide some form of guarantee that the scheme is to be implemented as soon as practically possible. If the pilots are successful, we should implement them immediately.

Registration is a critical factor. The number of people who are not registered to vote is distressing to any democrat on either side of the House. In Scotland, there is a long history of that and it is a more serious problem. Ever since the poll tax was introduced a year earlier in Scotland than in the rest of the UK, there has been a mini-flight from being registered on the local electoral register. Although the people who left the register do not have the same political issue to protest about, the idea of being unregistered has festered with a small, but not insignificant, minority in Scotland. Most people want to be registered to vote, so we need to give them every opportunity to participate in the registration process. If we then fail to inspire them to vote, it is entirely our fault and cannot be blamed on any administrative problems.

I welcome the registration provisions in the Bill. I recently wrote to my electoral registration officer raising my concerns about the level of registration that I had experienced during the election campaign. Although I welcome the reply that I got and the effort made by council staff in trying to register the whole community, I was a little concerned about the paucity of the response that we expect from our councils. The Representation of the People Act 1983 requires that the electoral registration officer sends out a letter to every address in the city and that that is then followed by a letter to every address that does not respond. I welcome that, but feel that it does not go far enough. The response rate in Dundee is about 87 per cent., which leaves a large number of people still languishing in the aforementioned democracy desert.

The proposals in the Bill bulk up that provision, and I hope that they will lead to more people being registered. Rolling registration has helped the situation and I hope that the provision will strengthen it further. The responsibility for the council to take part in house-to-house inquiries to back up the initial canvass is welcome. I sincerely hope that this will pick up more of the disfranchised and help to provide everyone with an opportunity to vote.

Also welcome is the provision to allow people to register much closer to the date of the election. The new deadline is to be within 11 working days of the election. That is vital. Evidence from the Electoral Commission suggests that people who are directly contacted during an election campaign have a 77 per cent. voting record. That is outstanding and shows the importance of us all as local representatives getting out and meeting the people we represent. It is not much of a jump for us then to surmise that people are more likely to register when they meet candidates; and as we all know, people see much more of the candidates during the election period.

I imagine that many Members will discuss the Bill negatively because of the Government's refusal to jettison postal voting. I take the alternative view and welcome that decision warmly. Although many may feel that those who are unable to vote are the sort of people who are so lazy that they do not deserve the vote, I take a different position.

According to recent studies, 40 per cent. of young people who did not vote in the most recent election intended to do so but did not get around to it. I accept that there may be some hubris in the responses and that some people feel bad about owning up to apathy, but the figure proves a point. If we accept that our society is becoming increasingly post consumerist and that the urge to vote is perceived as being equal to the urge to protest or discuss political issues in pubs and clubs throughout the country, we should make it as easy as possible to vote.

Many people commute to work and thus, if they work late, they miss the polling station. Many others want to vote but would prefer not to go to the polling station. Others have legitimate reasons that make it unreasonable to expect them to go to a polling station. Postal voting has a positive effect on our democracy. As long it proves to be safe, we should continue with it.

I would like to consider the provision that relates to allowing people who have not received a postal vote to vote in person on the day. That is vital. On 5 May, I met two young women who had been turned away from their polling station because the clerk had registered them as postal voters. The fact that they did not consider themselves to be postal voters is a slightly different issue that should not be tackled here. However, their total disfranchisement because of a mistake or deception perpetuated elsewhere is categorically unfair. I therefore welcome the change and I am glad that the Government have acted on that.

The Bill's role is not to inspire people to vote. However, it will ensure that fewer obstacles lie in the way of anyone who has even the slightest inclination to participate in the democratic process. The measure will not do our job for us and it is incumbent on us all to engage with people as much as possible and encourage everyone to participate in a vital process.

The debate has been constructive and the Bill contains some good provisions. Nevertheless, I urge my hon. Friends to support the reasoned amendment, which my hon. Friend Mr. Heald moved so eloquently. As he said, much remains to be done, for example, on individual registration. The Government have not given a good reason for not doing what has been tried and tested in Northern Ireland, as Mr. Robinson accurately showed.

The Minister did not give a good reason for lowering the threshold for the loss of a deposit. In my constituency, the BNP took 3.9 per cent. of the votes in the general election. Rewarding it with a return of a deposit—the Bill would do that on those figures—would give it a status that it does not deserve. In making such a generalisation, I do not suggest that the Scottish National party does not have a status. It has a high status, which it deserves. The fact that it gets only a small share of the vote is another matter.

We have heard much about the problems and pitfalls of postal voting. Again, no good reason has been given to justify the Government's position. Modernisation is justifiable only if it replaces the status quo with something better, not simply with something different. Of course, we all want more people to participate in elections. However, in the final reckoning, there must be an element of personal motivation that makes someone exercise his or her democratic right.

As my hon. Friend Mr. Harper said, it is Parliament's duty to ensure that every citizen has the opportunity to vote and, as the hon. Members for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) and for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) said, no one should be denied access to the polls, physically or otherwise, because of a disability or an inability. The Bill deals with that fairly adequately. However, it is absurd to develop a system that bends over backwards to try to make people vote and consequently destroys the checks and balances that make the system fair. That serves only to undermine the democracy that we intend to enhance.

I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in congratulating Mr. Devine on his maiden speech. It was a pleasure to hear his tribute to his predecessor and friend, whose charm, wit and wisdom we all miss, whether we agreed with his policies or not. The hon. Gentleman's description of the way in which he had administered a "jag" to a man who was "off his heid"—I understood what he meant—certainly marks him out for a great career in the Government Whips Office.

I understand why my hon. Friend Sir Patrick Cormack supports the Bill. We all commend the Government for adopting his proposals to remedy situations similar to the unique state of affairs that arose when his Liberal Democrat opponent so tragically died a few days before the general election. My hon. Friend eloquently explained how such a situation could precipitate a constitutional crisis. I venture to suggest that the absence of my hon. Friend's constitutional wisdom from the House was itself a mini-crisis, and we were pleased to have him restored to us after only seven weeks.

My hon. Friend Mr. Tyrie was right in what he said about the disgraceful treatment of members of the armed forces, large numbers of whom were deprived of the right to vote, even when they were fighting for their country and losing their lives in Iraq. The Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, Ms Harman appeared to agree that that state of affairs was unacceptable. However, there is nothing in the Bill to remedy the situation. We look forward to hearing what the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, David Cairns has to say in a few minutes' time, when he will have the opportunity to explain further what the Government intend to do to remedy the injustice currently meted out to serving soldiers, airmen and others.

My hon. Friend Peter Viggers, as a member of the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, brought wisdom and experience to the debate. He and my hon. Friend Mr. Pickles both made the fundamental point that, as the whole electoral system is vulnerable to fraud, and that a small amount of fraud has a large effect on undermining confidence in the system, it is very important that we ensure that our precious democracy is not undermined in that way. Let us not exaggerate. We all know that, fundamentally, we have a great system. It is probably the best and most secure electoral system anywhere in the world, and it is one on which many other democracies have based their systems. So let us not now, for the sake of modernisation or political correctness, go blindly down a road that would be likely to diminish the security of that system and to undermine it.

Mr. Heath, who spoke on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, made it clear why they are not the official Opposition in the House—

Explain.

I certainly will. The hon. Gentleman and Dr. Whitehead both urged that we should all be in agreement this evening—

No.

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he wishes to explain further.

The hon. Lady is explaining why she is going to recommend to her colleagues that they decline to give a Second Reading to a Bill that is the only vehicle that we have for introducing the reforms that we all agree need to be put in place. She needs to explain what kind of opposition that is.

It is the only vehicle that we have before us now. That does not mean that it cannot be improved and become a much better vehicle once we go through the next stages—[Interruption.] If our reasoned amendment wins this evening and the Bill does not go into Committee, it would be perfectly fine for the Government to go away, think again and bring back a better Bill, along the lines that we have suggested—[Interruption.] Mr. Speaker, what is this place if not the forum for debate? What are we here for if we cannot refine the Government's proposals and make them better? That is our job. We support many of the measures in the Bill—we want a better system—but I truly believe that a constructive debate such as we have had this evening is an essential element in the democratic process. It is not our duty to stand here agreeing with the Government—

Or the Liberal Democrats.

Or, as my hon. Friend says, with the Liberal Democrats, who do not put up any opposition to the Government. It is our duty to hold the Government to account, which is what we are doing this evening.

Our reasoned amendment would lead to a better Bill. [Interruption.] It would lead to a better Bill. Labour Members simply cannot disagree. If, perchance, the Bill receives a Second Reading and is considered in Committee, the matters that we have set out so carefully in our reasoned amendment will be the subject of further debate. If not, we will expect a better Bill to be brought back to the House.

Democracy is a fragile entity, which is why we have to defend it. It depends on the confidence of the people. The very fact that we are having this debate and giving the House the opportunity to divide are steps in the right direction to strengthening our democracy.

There is more to democracy than casting a vote, but there is no higher democratic duty for those of us who are charged with office than to ensure that voting is safe and simple for everyone who is entitled to participate. That is what the Bill sets out to achieve. It takes forward the Government's aims of making registration more accessible for voters, enhancing the security of our electoral system and improving the vital, though often technical, process of electoral administration.

As the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, my right hon. and learned Friend Ms Harman, made clear in her opening remarks, the vast majority of the proposals in the Bill have emerged from the recommendations of the independent Electoral Commission, following extensive nationwide consultation. The measures that are outlined are based on three interlocking principles: access to voting for all who are entitled, participation by all who wish to participate and fairness for all through zero tolerance of fraud and intimidation. None of those principles is optional.

Through the Bill, we will improve the registration process, in particular by enabling people to register after an election has been called and establishing a new duty for registration officers to take all necessary steps to ensure that comprehensive registers are in place. To tighten security, especially for postal voters, two new electoral fraud offences are to be created, and we are piloting the collection of personal identifiers at registration.

To improve the accuracy and integrity of electoral registers and to support national access, we will introduce a framework for CORE—the co-ordinated online record of electors. We will introduce new measures to simplify administration, particularly for postal votes, and give new powers and new finance to electoral administrators. To help to open up elections to everyone, we will improve information available to voters in polling stations, providing guidance in languages other than English and Welsh, and in a variety of formats.

To that end, it was encouraging to see a great deal of support for most of those measures in all parts of the House. Extraordinary expertise on the issue has been displayed over the past few hours, as has the accumulated experience of thousands of elections fought over what amounts to many hundreds of years. We have seen evidence of detailed thinking and engagement with the issues and the proposals that we have set out.

At the start of my summing up, I want to reiterate the point made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State in her opening remarks: the Government are genuinely open to considering amendments tabled in Committee that are based on evidence, where they are non-controversial and we can seek consensus in all parts of the House. That is how we have approached the Bill and how we have put these measures before the House today.

I want to make one particular point. The Opposition mentioned it, but that does not necessarily make it wrong. I am very concerned about the figure of 2 per cent. I see no justification for it and it will encourage every racist extremist. I hope that that provision will be amended in Committee without any trouble at all.

My hon. Friend has highlighted an issue that I wanted to deal with later, but I will do so now as he has raised it. Clearly, there was no consensus across the House in support of the move from a 5 per cent. to a 2 per cent. threshold at which the deposit is lost. The Electoral Commission made the recommendation, and along with many other such recommendations we incorporated it into the Bill. We would not want to ram the measure through if it did not enjoy support on both sides of the House, and we can revisit the issue in Committee.

The measure outstanding is therefore individual voter registration, which was recommended by international observers of our election, the Electoral Commission and Members on both sides of the House. Will the Government reconsider that?

The Bill allows for individual registration. I think that some Opposition Members are trying to have their cake and eat it. At one point, Mrs. Laing said that we must be careful about pushing ahead with measures that will unravel hundreds of years of history. However, when we said that the proposal would be a departure from the practice in Great Britain and that we therefore wanted to pilot it as it was important to proceed on an evidence base, Opposition Members said that we were not going far enough.

Will the Minister give way?

No. I have only eight minutes, whereas Mr. Heald had 25 minutes.

As my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister said in her opening speech, the issue is not one of principle. We are not in principle opposed to or in favour of individual identifiers. We are saying, "Let us pilot it and see what happens." First, we need to see whether the hoped-for security benefits materialise. Secondly, we need to find out whether there will be the feared reduction in numbers of people registered, as expressed in speech after speech—and which one Member referred to as a catastrophic drop. If we go ahead with the pilots, the Electoral Commission will assess those and bring its assessment back to the Secretary of State. We would not need new primary legislation to make those pilots apply across the UK, as one or two Members suggested. We feel that a proper evidence base is needed before we proceed. That was one of the two major themes mentioned by the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire.

Given that I have gone some way towards meeting what the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire said, I appeal to him, even at this late hour, to reconsider his unwise decision to divide the House on the issue. There is a wide measure of cross-party support, and every other party represented in the speeches this evening will support the Government in the Lobby—not because they agree with every measure in the Bill, but because they understand that defeating the Bill at this stage does away with any chance in the near future to get the measures that we all want on to the statute book. Given the consensual approach to the matter, we could proceed with much greater cross-party co-operation in Committee if we did not divide at this stage, but that is a matter for him.

We were privileged this evening to hear an excellent maiden speech from my hon. Friend Mr. Devine. He was right that many tributes have been paid to Robin Cook as a parliamentarian and world statesman. He paid tribute to him as a constituency Member of Parliament, however, and as someone who spent quite a bit of time with my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston during the by-election I saw that reflected on doorstep after doorstep. I often think that MPs overstate the personal vote. In Livingston it was not overstated—Robin Cook had a very strong personal vote. During that by-election, my hon. Friend plied me with huge quantities of Fry's Turkish Delight on a daily basis, and as Members can see my efforts to refuse the temptation were hopeless. I formed the impression during the by-election that he was an outstanding candidate, and I have no doubt whatever that he will be an outstanding Member of Parliament.

Mr. Heath welcomed the Bill, said it was not perfect, but wanted a Second Reading so that he could raise some of the issues that we have been discussing in Committee. That is a sensible approach. He spoke of the tension between the integrity of the register and comprehensiveness, between the need to tackle fraud and the need to maximise the register. The Government do not believe that it is either/or; we believe that it is both/and. We tackle fraud and we maximise the register: we do both at the same time.The hon. Gentleman also made some interesting suggestions about the duplication of reporting, which we will certainly consider if he raises the issue in Committee.

My hon. Friend Miss Begg raised a couple of specific issues, one relating to postal vote provision and the other to a case in the constituency of our hon. Friend Rosemary McKenna. I assure her that the Bill takes steps to deal with both. My hon. Friend, however, devoted most of her speech to access issues. The Bill provides for four-yearly reviews of polling stations, but it is, of course, completely unacceptable that she could not gain access to a polling station in her constituency at the last election. That should not have happened, and it must not happen again. The review will focus on precisely those issues.

Sir Patrick Cormack spoke of the extraordinary situation in which he found himself. We should remember that at the heart of that was a personal tragedy—the death of a Liberal Democrat candidate, Jo Harrison. As we examine the political ramifications, it is important to think of the human dimensions and to send our sympathies to Jo Harrison's family for the tragedy that produced those circumstances. The hon. Gentleman knows that the Government will be prepared to consider his amendment in Committee, and I look forward to working with him then.

It is often invidious to pick out one outstanding contribution, but I think that my hon. Friend Chris Ruane made it. He has tabled hundreds of questions and addressed the issue in depth. He repeatedly said that if we are to have individual registration schemes for the whole country, we need an evidence base. The evidence base simply is not there, he said. He also raised the issue of databases, which has become another important theme.

Mr. Tyrie spoke of his concern about postal voting. He said that the postal voting experiment had gone wrong, but, with respect, I do not agree. Where there are abuses, where there are frauds, we come down on those abuses and frauds like a ton of bricks; but I will not apologise for extending people's ability to engage in postal voting.

Will the Minister give way?

No, I am afraid I cannot.

People like postal voting and there is no way in which we can return to the days when people had to obtain a doctor's signature. Some constituents had to pay £5 or £10.

Will the Minister give way?

I will not give way on this issue. [Hon. Members: "Give way!"] I will not give way because I want to extend an olive branch to the hon. Gentleman in relation to the service voters whom he mentioned. That theme emerged time and again. I do not have time to go into the details, but Members in all parts of the House feel that we still have not got it right in terms of registration and postal votes for service personnel. I give the hon. Gentleman an undertaking that we will work with the Ministry of Defence, the Electoral Commission and Members in all parties to get it right. It is too important not to get right, and we will get it right. I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising it.

My hon. Friends Mr. Love and for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) mentioned what they described as catastrophic under-registration. That lies at the heart of what we are trying to do in the Bill. We are not tolerant of the fact that 3.5 million people are not on the electoral register. We will give electoral registration officers a duty to reduce that figure and to take whatever steps are necessary.

There were many other contributions, but unfortunately I do not have time to deal with them in depth. Mr. Robinson asked two specific questions—about late registration in Northern Ireland and about political party donations. I have been assured that the Northern Ireland Office is actively considering both issues and is organising a consultation in which he may wish to participate.

There was no agreement on the case for reducing the voting age from 18 to 16, but my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State rightly said that she would keep the issue under review.

I thank all Members for their contributions to a thoughtful and thorough debate and I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 166, Noes 374.

Question accordingly negatived.

Main Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 62 (Amendment on second or third reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.