Electoral Administration Bill

It is not a matter of the new clause expressing a change in attitude. It simply tidies up the Bill so that we have what was originally intended, which is that if the pilots are successful, we do not have to return to the House with primary legislation because the arrangements will be implemented by order, and if they are not successful, the power will not be left on the statute book and will be repealed in the same way as we are enabling the pilots to be rolled out. We want to make the Bill right. The hon. Gentleman again queries whether we are half-hearted about the pilots. Personal identifiers were not my idea. It came from the Electoral Commission and Opposition Members. We accepted the suggestion that we should pilot them, but we are not doing that as a way of kicking them into the long grass. We accept the argument that they are worth testing. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House accept my good faith on that. We expect the pilots to be a reality and for them to help us to understand more about the way in which the system will work if it is changed. They are not a ruse, a device or a way of fobbing people off. They ensure that if we are to go ahead with the change, we pilot it and test it first. I was reinforced in my view that the evidence-based approach is the right way for the Government and the House to be going about this when we had a round-table discussion this morning, helpfully convened by the Electoral Commission, on service voters, many of whom are not registered and who are disfranchised. The House made a change in 2001 on the basis of all-party agreement, which everyone now accepts had unintended consequences. Before we made the national change, we should have piloted it first. Perhaps then we would have seen the unintended consequences and had a different scheme for servicemen and women. I am trying to have a better approach to another change in registration. This is a process issue.