Electoral Administration Bill

I will happily support the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath). Indeed, I would much rather support the proposal by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) that we use national insurance numbers to ensure that the register has integrity. I am happy to do either or both of those things because I do not want, and I hope that no other hon. Member would want, to have the same experience that I, and I am sure many others, had during the last general election campaign of the unwillingness of those who had applied for postal votes to use them because they had insufficient faith that the postal vote would not be interfered with. Although we are talking about registration, the integrity of the register and the voting system as a whole has a substantial effect on whether those people cast their vote. They do not have a choice between voting by post or voting in person at the ballot box. Their choice is between voting by post or not voting at all. If the House attempts to increase registration, which I fully accept is a desirable goal, but, in the course of doing so, damages turnout, that will be a strange and undesirable outcome. The House has an obligation, and we in this debate have an obligation, to find a way in which we can make a register as safe, reliable and complete as it can possibly be. The proposals that give us the most safe, reliable and complete register, from whichever side of the House they come, are the ones that should command the support of the whole House. The objections by Labour Members that the national insurance number would do even greater damage to the level of registration do not hold water. It is improbable that the reason people do not register now is because of the obligations on them, by which I mean the obligation to give their name, signature or, in the future, national insurance number. The reasons for not registering are far more fundamental than that. I agree, as I am sure does pretty much every hon. Member, that something serious has to be done to address that level of disengagement, but adding the requirement to supply a signature or a national insurance number would not damage registration.