Electoral Administration Bill

I shall deal with the two key issues in the debate: first, the personal identifiers and the possible use of national insurance numbers; and secondly, whether people should fill in a household form or an individual form. It is important to try to work towards some sort of general agreement across the Chamber on those matters. On electoral law and the conduct of elections, if we could reach a consensus that would endure for a number of years, it would help the electorate to have stability. On national insurance numbers, I hope that the Conservative party might reflect again, for two reasons. First, national insurance numbers are not necessarily secure. That point has been well made. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said that people could use duplicate numbers fraudulently. Indeed, I accept that such numbers are used in Northern Ireland, but people can sign a statement to say that they do not have one. If people can do that, what is the point of requiring them to give their number in the first place? That is a hole in the system. A few years ago, a Select Committee report identified how many extra national insurance numbers existed than people entitled to have them, so there are problems with that proposal. It will not greatly add to the security of the system. Secondly, the use of such numbers might be worth considering if it were not for the fact that that would be a disincentive to people registering. Some people will be able to lay their hands very easily on their last salary or wage slip and read their national insurance number, but the point has been well made that some people cannot do so—for example, those who have been out of work for a period. Women will be particularly discriminated against because many of them will have taken time off to have a family, which is a fairly normal course of events. People who are unemployed probably cannot remember where they put their last pay slip. In the circumstances, if they must go and hunt for it the likelihood is that they will just say, ““Oh, I’ll get round to that in due course””, and they will end up not filling in the registration form. I hope that hon. Members will accept that those difficulties can be a barrier to people who are unemployed, to women and, probably, to people in the ethnic minority communities. Some of the very people who we want to encourage to register will be discriminated against. So I hope that that proposal will be reconsidered. If Opposition Members are really keen on people having a discrete, unique number to use on the forms and a secure form of electoral registration that is more efficient than anything else, they should opt for the national identity system with ID cards. People would then have a number to put on the form. Moreover, there would be a straight read across to give us a register that would be about 99.9 per cent. accurate. That shows another benefit of ID cards, but national insurance numbers would not eventually provide that security.