Electoral Administration Bill

My Lords, I have a query about the amendment. I thought that I would intervene on this one in the hope that I might be on a roll. When I saw that the amendment had been tabled, I realised that the intention was to bring forward a consolidation measure. I can understand the reason for that but I wanted to raise a query relating to the tabling of the amendment and getting to the consolidation Act. The intention is to consolidate electoral law, including the 1983 and 2000 Acts, and that raises a concern of mine, of which the Minister is aware, relating to the edited version of the electoral register. As the law stands, people have to opt out of their name being included in the register but, as the noble Baroness is aware, I believe that we must move towards the opt-in provision. The present arrangement is a default one and so we cannot be certain that all those whose names are in the edited register have given informed consent to be in the register. As it is a default mechanism and there is no personal registration, we cannot know whether the head of the household has consulted everyone to ensure that they wish to be in the register and therefore we cannot know whether they have exercised the option to opt out. I think that the Minister’s other hat, under which she is in charge of personal data, is important because we cannot be certain that people have assented to their personal data being made available commercially to third parties. I am keen to see a change in the law. I recognise the complexity of doing that and understand that such a change cannot be included in the Bill before us, but I should like to see a subsequent change. Of course, that will require legislation, and my question is whether we are likely to see any activity between the passage of this Bill and any future consolidation measure—in other words, whether we can get a change agreed and embodied in legislation before we move to consolidation, which, by its nature, must consolidate the law as there is no provision for change. If the noble Baroness is able to give me an assurance on that, I shall be extremely grateful.