Political Parties and Elections Bill

The issue is about more than the hours. We should be able to scrutinise the legislation line by line, with amendments—including probing amendments. We need to consider it very carefully. As the Minister says, the Bill has been considerably improved during its passage through the House. That is the point: it has been improved because we have scrutinised it—the Minister said that himself. It would be further improved if we could scrutinise the new proposals that he has put forward this evening. I want to ask the Minister a few questions about data security. Will he assure us, on behalf of the individuals of this country, that adequate data security procedures will be in place to ensure that the enormous amount of personal data to which the clauses refer are properly protected—that is, better protected than the personal information that the Government have lost in recent months? Will the Electoral Commission be required to lay before Parliament a copy of its report on the data-sharing scheme? Will the Information Commissioner be required to produce a report in respect of subsection (4)? Will registration officers be required to undertake a privacy impact assessment? Those are precise questions, but this is not the time for asking them or the atmosphere in which they should be asked; we are now nine minutes from Third Reading. I do not suppose that the Minister will have a chance to answer the questions this evening. [Interruption.] The Minister says that he will write to me, and I appreciate that. However, we should ask the questions in an atmosphere where the Minister and Members can properly scrutinise the information before us. Having said all that, I am pleased that the Government have brought forward the proposals this evening. As I said a few moments ago, at the beginning of the Bill's passage we said that there was no point in a political parties and elections Bill that did not include provisions to improve the integrity of the ballot and the individual's right to register and vote. We are delighted that, at last, the Minister—albeit at the eleventh hour—has come forward with the proposals for which we have been looking for many months.