I congratulate the Minister’s civil servants on the lines of argument that they have managed to construct for him, because the case is shilly-shallying and pathetic, so constructing any argument at all was a major achievement. I shall give Ministers longer to consider the matter, because the issue is important. It is urgent that we tackle postal-voting fraud, and what has been suggested so far is not adequate. The pilots are completely unacceptable, and it is time Ministers came up with something better—the Electoral Commission has come up with some ideas.
It is all well and good for the Minister to say, ““Give way on important points””, but what movement have we seen so far? The problem is urgent, and all Ministers have come up with are pathetic, potty, little pilots, which have already been tried out in a country—Northern Ireland. It will not do, and we need something better from Ministers. We shall return to the subject, when we hope that Ministers will do better. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Electoral Administration Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Oliver Heald
(Conservative)
in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 8 November 2005.
It occurred during Debate on bills
and
Committee of the Whole House (HC) on Electoral Administration Bill 2005-06.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
439 c245-6 
Session
2005-06
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2024-04-21 21:32:00 +0100
URI
http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_273276
In Indexing
http://indexing.parliament.uk/Content/Edit/1?uri=http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_273276
In Solr
https://search.parliament.uk/claw/solr/?id=http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_273276