My Lords, I am tempted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Patten, in my role as a mere Methodist in this House, but that is not the direction in which I want to go today. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Harrison, my travelling colleague from Crewe and Chester to London, for initiating this debate. I should like to stress again the democratic element in his Motion. The Government have moved, and we must express gratitude to them, to fulfil the pledge that they made in 1997 to establish a Parliament for Scotland and Assemblies for Northern Ireland and Wales. That has brought about a transformation in the way in which legislative programmes are considered in Wales and Scotland and, over time I expect, Northern Ireland. Instead of a Secretary of State dictating what is to happen, the elected Assembly or Parliament has a voice and makes the final decision. This is growing and improving as the years go by and we are grateful for it.

I want to mention the revolutionary change that was made to the way in which we elect Members of the European Parliament, so that we now use a form of PR list, for which, again, I am most grateful. However, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, when speaking in a debate a couple of nights ago, suggested that the next Conservative Government,

"might be reverting to first past the post, for European parliamentary elections".-[Hansard, 11/1/10; col. 364.]

Others participating in the debate will have listened to that statement with a wee bit of alarm. Democracy cannot stand still and the systems of yesterday are not necessarily fit for purpose today.

Perhaps I may repeat what I have said a number of times. Around 200 years ago, there were uncontested, unopposed returns in many constituencies. Even as recently as the general election of 1900, there were some 243 unopposed returns. We had only the Whigs and the Tories and later the Liberals and the Conservatives. With only two candidates from each of the parties fighting for most of the seats, it was easy to achieve over 50 per cent of the vote for one of the candidates. But that has changed over the years. In Scotland and Wales, with nationalist parties and others having come into the ring, we now have three, four or five candidates for each seat. It is therefore often the case that a Member is elected with under 50 per cent of the votes and thus does not represent the majority of the constituents. Yesterday's system does not work today and, as I have said, it is not fit for purpose.

We have seen changes over the past century such as votes for women, who achieved the same status as men in 1928, and, from 1960, votes for those aged 18 and over. We have also seen the growth of postal voting on demand. This is a move that we on these Benches regard with a bit of suspicion. This is the only country in the world that has postal votes on demand and the whole field has been opened up to the possibility of fraud. In Birmingham and other places, there have been court cases to decide on this element of democratic change.

Postal votes have changed everything. In 1997, 2.1 per cent of the electorate had a postal vote, which represented 937,205 votes. In 2001, the figure had risen to 1,758,055, representing 4 per cent of the electorate. By 2005, 12.1 per cent had the postal vote-5,362,501 people. For the European elections last year, 14.2 per cent of the electorate-6,318,501 people-had a postal vote. It is quite possible that in the election in May this year we will see 8 million postal votes. In Newcastle upon Tyne, for example, some 31 per cent of the electorate has registered for a postal vote-some 67,000 applications.

However, the election timetable remains the same. For parliamentary elections, close of nominations and close of postal vote applications occur only 11 days before polling day. When the number of postal vote applications has increased tenfold, an intolerable burden is placed on returning officers in the constituencies, which can lead to serious errors being made. When you do something under pressure, mistakes can be made.

I am pressing this in various ways, but what I would like is for us to look at the timetable. In local elections, 19 days are allowed between nomination day and polling day. Why do we not allow an extra week for people to register for postal votes in general elections? Once nomination day is reached, the electoral registration officer has 24 hours in which to send by Royal Mail all the ballot papers. There will be immense pressure this year if the general election is held on the same day as the local elections, which are being held in England on 6 May. It will be a recipe for disaster unless the Government move to extend the time allowed.

It is bad for us at home in this country, but are there not also great difficulties in trying to get postal votes returned from those in Afghanistan in 11 days? It cannot be done. One local authority informed me that it did not have one return from Iraq at the time of the last general election. By limiting the period to 11 days, we are disfranchising those young men and women who are putting their lives on the line for us. If we expect them to do that, the least we can do is make sure that they have the opportunity to vote in a general election.

I say 19 days, but the Electoral Commission says 25 days and has urged the Government to increase the period to that. There is time to do it. You can sometimes get a Bill through the House of Commons and the House of Lords in a matter of a day or two. Why are the Government not responding to this need and, at the same time, undermining the democratic ideal?