Electoral Administration Bill

It would be all right further down. That would be the right place, as it would suggest that the register’s integrity was an important factor, but not one that outweighed any other consideration. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) was right, when speaking to his amendment No. 30, to stress the need to maximise the number of people entitled to register. I hope that the Bill contains a clear expression of that intention. I understand the objectives of his other amendments, and I admit that I am being pedantic, but the proposal in amendment No. 28 to give EROs not just a power but a duty to inspect"““any records held by any person or organisation as designated by the Secretary of State””" might involve them in rather more work than they had anticipated. We need access to any record, and EROs, as part of their duty to maximise the number of people on the register, should use the information available in a sensible way. Although the amendment is not worded quite right, my criticism is minor and I do not want to take anything away from the hon. Gentleman’s intention. My difficulty with amendment No. 29 is similar. I think that organisations should have a duty to provide information on request, but bureaucratic meltdown might result if the duty were to provide any bit of information that might ever be of value to an ERO whenever a database somewhere in the country was changed. I think that the job that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe wants done would be achieved by inserting into the Bill a duty to provide information on request and by giving EROs the power of inspection, provided that that was in the context of an overall and overriding duty to maximise the numbers of people on the register who are entitled to vote, and to remove those who are not so entitled.