Political Parties and Elections Bill

If the hon. Lady reflects on that, she will see that the two timetables are not too different. As always, there is an element of judgment involved, but we are talking about a profound shift. If we got it wrong and, as a result of shifting to individual registration, which we all agree is desirable, large numbers of people who were eligible to vote fell off the register, it would be a disaster. We must not botch it if we can possibly avoid doing so. A proper time scale enables us to ensure that we do not. A crucial element that we have not discussed so far is the census; I am happy to try to reassure the hon. Lady on that point. The 2011 census will be helpful in determining the proportion of eligible voters who are registered. I am not referring to the absolute numbers, which I mentioned earlier. As the hon. Lady will be aware, it is methodologically extremely difficult to get a figure for the proportion of eligible voters who are registered. The figure of 91 per cent. was mentioned; that was the result of an extremely complex methodological exercise, and the figure is hedged around with caveats. However, we know for a fact that far too many people who are eligible to vote are not registered to do so. The 2011 census will give us a valuable database. It is the first census that has a nationality question on it, so it will give the Electoral Commission a great deal of potentially very important data on which to make the assessment that I am about to discuss. It is worth remarking that, as I understand it, the data will not begin to be processed until well into 2012, after which lessons will have to be learned. If the hon. Lady does some simple arithmetic—she can borrow it from the Liberal Democrats—she will find that the two timetables are pretty close together.