Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I am not an expert on the new technology, despite what some people think. In terms of this Chamber, I am the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. Just in case the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, thinks that he has inspired me to my feet, I say that it was not him but the Minister—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace. On several occasions now, in response to these debates, he has mentioned using databases in relation to the register. That gives rise to two questions. First, which registers and databases will he ask local authorities to use? They will obviously use their own records, such as school records, local housing records and perhaps their leisure facility records. Can they use social security records? After all, many of the people about whom my noble friend has spoken may be registered as unemployed or registered for social security in some form or other. Will the local government registration officer be able to use social security records to reach them? The Government may be able to instruct them to do so, because they control social security and other areas of that nature. However, there are bodies in between that are public—they are financed by the taxpayer—but which are responsible neither to local government nor to national government. I have in mind in particular the National Health Service, which is run by a series of trusts and organisations that are supposedly at arm’s length from government. Will GPs’ records be available to returning officers? Can they go to a GP and say, ““You must tell us all those who have just reached the age of 18””? GPs will know the names and addresses if they are registered. Can they, more controversially, go to an A&E hospital and say, ““These people come to your hospital with accidents. Can you give us the records of where they live and the date on which they were born?””? I do not know the answer, but the noble Lord has suggested that on several occasions. Equally, a large number of these databases are in private hands. Obviously, you can ask community organisations, but you can only ask; you cannot instruct—or are the Government intending to take powers to instruct local authorities to banks, local community organisations and local sports organisations that are not directly funded? Where do you go on this? How far will a local authority go? That gives rise to the second question. If you listened carefully—and I will read carefully what the Minister has been saying—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, implied that local authorities will positively draw up a register based on these databases. They will go to the databases to find out who left school and where they live and put them on the register. Is that what they intend to do?