Electoral Administration Bill

My hon. Friend is quite right, but my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire has thought of that excellent point, which is why his proposal includes provision for the very small number of people who do not have a national insurance number and cannot legally claim one: they can make a declaration to that effect. However, I hope that the Government wake up to the serious problem that the country now faces. With the mother of Parliaments and the democracy that most of us prize very highly, we have a serious problem of illegal registration and deception or fraud in our voting system. That is disfiguring our country’s democracy and is beginning to be commented on by people outside this country, and one wonders whether, soon, instead of our sending people to oversee other people’s elections in emerging democracies, overseas people will have to come here to oversee our democracy because it is becoming a scandal.