Political Parties and Elections Bill

We welcome these new clauses. The Minister has stressed several times during his speech the fundamental principles, and we agree with him on those principles. Indeed, the Opposition said from the very beginning, when the Bill was first introduced, that there was no point in having a Bill about political parties and elections without the sort of provision that the Minister has introduced this evening. Although I understand his explanations about the practical difficulties that he has faced in introducing his proposals tonight, what is sad is that, if the provisions been included at the beginning of our scrutiny of the Bill, by this point in the proceedings—we are minutes away from the debate on Third Reading—he would have had the consensus that he asked for. As far as I can tell from long and detailed consideration in Committee, we are all in agreement about what we are trying to achieve. The question is how, and what the balance is between the needs of the individual, of privacy and of preventing fraud and so on, and the integrity of the ballot.