Electoral Administration Bill

I am grateful for what my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) said about service voter registration. I shall make three brief points about that. First, having campaigned for about 18 months, I am now certain that the Minister has understood the problem and really wants to do something about it. That is a huge plus. Secondly, I have the strong impression that the whole House is convinced that we need to do something about it. All parties agree that we cannot stay where we are. Thirdly, we have not yet cracked the problem because not all parts of the Government agree on what should be done. My strong impression is that the Ministry of Defence never liked the old service voter registration scheme. It feels that it has better things to do than to act, effectively, as a returning officer. That is a perfectly reasonable attitude. The MOD would much rather try to muddle through with the existing scheme and see whether it can be made to work. I do not think that it can, and I do not think we should accept that approach. There are two other possible routes. One involves trying to devise a much better piece of legislation, which I do not think will be possible in the time available to the other place. If we are to try to find the best solution, that will mean putting enabling powers on the statute book that the Minister can then activate through secondary legislation. As a legislator, I do not like that approach, but I realise that it may be necessary. That was the purport of an amendment that was tabled by the Opposition, but not debated today. The other possible approach is one that I recommended originally and have not yet abandoned. It involves repealing the relevant clause in the old legislation and returning to the status quo ante, so that at least during the next few years and at the next general election, 250,000 service voters will be back on the register. That would give us time to work out together what is the best scheme, but the best must not become the enemy of the good. We cannot allow the scandal of service voters who work for democracy in countries such as Iraq finding themselves disenfranchised at home to continue. We cannot allow it to happen at an election again. I salute the Minister for reaching that conclusion and hope that she will emphasise, with all possible vigour, the need to resolve the issue in a sensible way. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed. Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),