Electoral Administration Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for clarifying that. Clause 45 provides for a marked list of returned postal votes to be compiled. It is of course recognised that political parties and candidates will find the marked list of returned postal votes helpful for campaigning purposes, and it will be available to them after the election in the same way as the marked register at polling stations is currently available. The marked register of returned postal votes will include postal voters that applied for a postal vote during the election campaign. Access to the marked list of returned postal votes will be in accordance with regulations to be made under Clauses 41 and 42. The regulations will set out who may have access to the marked registers, under what conditions, the purposes for which they may be used, and the manner in which they may be supplied. I think that we will be able to cover all the noble Baroness’s concerns in those regulations. It is therefore unnecessary to put the precise details of the arrangements in the Bill. It is anticipated that the regulations will provide for the marked lists of returned postal votes to be available in both printed and electronic form. I think that the only difference between us—I apologise to the noble Baroness for not having answered her question properly—is that we think it is better to set out those details in secondary legislation, but it will cover all the points which she raised and to which I referred in my reply.