Electoral Administration Bill

On the second issue, the Government have tabled amendments to require EROs to provide the necessary information to the proposed central online register of electors. That was previously only a discretionary power in the Bill, so the measure has been strengthened. My right hon. Friend is right that EROs need proper performance standards and to behave according to the highest standards that can be achieved. Again, the Bill overall will improve the position, but we should not be complacent. Government is supposed to be joined up and seamless and we hear endless remarks to that effect. Yet the Northern Ireland Office has said that the use of national insurance numbers is essential to enhancing the accuracy of and confidence in the electoral register. Would a Minister care to reflect on that? Is it successful government for one Department to say, ““Oh no. National insurance numbers—surely not””, when another Department claims that they are central to enhancing the accuracy of and confidence in the electoral register? The two viewpoints are opposed. The Government should join themselves up and the Department should reach the same conclusion as the Northern Ireland Office because it began with the same ill-conceived argument as the Minister. It claimed that national insurance numbers would be a barrier to registration and that such a system would not work. Only constant pressing and probing and the persuasive powers of my noble Friend Lord Glentoran meant that the proposals were accepted. Lord Glentoran persuaded Lord Williams of Mostyn, who was then the relevant Minister, that national insurance numbers were the only practical way of providing an objective database against which one could check the names. That is now law and it has worked. Ministers should learn from that experience rather than reinventing the wheel.