Electoral Administration Bill

Before I come on to the substantive debate about service personnel, I emphasise that we support all the other amendments and I am grateful to the Government for accepting them. Some of them were tabled by Opposition Members, including colleagues of mine. Lord Greaves and others pressed some and I am grateful that they have been accepted. The main debate is about Lords amendment No. 6 and amendment (a), which the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) tabled. I hope that we are all united in our view that we must deal with a severe problem. The hon. Gentleman read out the figures, which my noble Friend Lord Garden cited in the debate in the Lords. They show that there has been a considerable drop in the number of registered service personnel and the number of service personnel who vote, and a worse drop in the number of service personnel overseas who vote. That is evident from the facts. We are grateful for the figures but even they may hide the reality. What should be done? I hope that I do not inappropriately betray confidences when I say that I know that the Department for Constitutional Affairs has been keen for some time to press the Ministry of Defence to make a set of commitments. It has also been keen for the proposal that has now come from the Lords to be agreed. I believe that it is generally known that the Ministry of Defence did not sign up to that until the recent reshuffle. The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, who is present, made it clear that they shared the view of the Department for Constitutional Affairs. I pay tribute to them for making their views clear and for the fact that, at last, there was an end to the differences between the two Departments. Lord Garden, who was a Chief of the Defence Staff in a previous life, knows about such matters. He sensed that there was resistance in the Ministry of Defence and said so. He made it clear that the resistance was unacceptable. The Government have now accepted the amendment that my noble Friend originally tabled and that was supported by the Opposition parties and others. It is now before us, with Government support. There is a remaining difference, which is not big, between the Government position, for which we voted in the House of Lords, and amendment (a). My colleagues and I are sympathetic to its objective but, given that Lords amendment No. 6 is the proposal—indeed, the exact words—that we tabled, it would be unfair to say to the Government, ““Thank you very much. You’ve tabled what we were tabling, but we’re going to vote against it.”” In all logic and honesty, we must be consistent about that.