Electoral Administration Bill

My hon. Friend reminds me that the overwhelming majority of councils in Wales are run by Labour, and they are the local education authorities. The hon. Gentleman ought to be somewhat careful. Of course, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will not want me—however tempted I am, and however much I should enjoy it—to be diverted from the thrust of my remarks and into a subsidiary debate about the appalling quality of education in Wales, delivered by appalling Labour councils. You would not want me to do that, and I shall not submit to the temptation. The point I was making before the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) was so very helpful to me was that whereas it is a matter for an individual to have and to take responsibility for registering to vote, the opposite side of the coin is that it is the responsibility of the electoral registration authorities to do all they can and should do to verify that persons are who they say they are and are entitled to vote. I am not yet convinced that any of the mechanisms in the Bill, or indeed in the new clauses and amendments, go far enough in that direction. I should have thought that the national insurance number was probably the very least we could ask for. I should rather like some photographic identification to be given, such as the horrible new-style driving licences or the horrible European Community passports we are now all obliged to carry. There are a whole number of ways in which this could be pushed forward to send out the message that we want to ensure that someone who is claiming to be eligible to vote in elections in this country is who he or she says and is entitled to cast a vote. I see none of that, sadly, in the Bill. We shall, I suppose, have to support the new clauses and amendments that take us a small way in that direction. Such is the nature of things. I did ask my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) earlier, when looking at amendment No. 17, what reassurance we have when someone applies and provides a signature and date of birth but says they do not have a national insurance number. I am not entirely sure he gave me an answer, so I shall give him the chance to have another go if he wants. Is there to be nothing else? Presumably in that case we are going simply to trust the date of birth and the signature, and not require any alternative to the national insurance number. That strikes me as taking us not very much further forward. My hon. Friend seemed to think that that provided some sort of assurance, but it almost writes a loophole into the amendment.