Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I will intervene only briefly and do not really want to go down all the roads that I went down some years ago during the Labour Government’s two attempts—the second was successful, in my view quite mistakenly—to reintroduce individual registration. I have never been able to understand why the Liberal Democrats supported that. I understand that the Electoral Commission, in its various reports, kept on promoting the principle. However, the Liberal Democrats must have been aware of the dangers that would arise, even in some of their own seats such as the one that includes Bermondsey. Bermondsey is in a seat that could be gravely damaged through the introduction of individual registration, and I simply cannot understand why they seemingly allowed it all to happen. My own view was very simple; there was a problem to be resolved, and that was fraud within the electoral system. That, I suspect, was the driving force behind those who argued for it. They chose an extremely expensive way of resolving the problem, whereby the whole of the United Kingdom would be subject to individual registration, against the parts of it in which there was a particular problem. Without going into detail, most Members of the Committee will understand precisely what I mean. There is a problem in certain parts of the United Kingdom, which had to be dealt with. On two occasions under two separate Bills, I came up with a recommendation that would have sorted out that problem by giving local authorities the right to opt for a particular status whereby they would be given additional resources to sort out the problems in their areas, but the Labour Government unfortunately turned it down. Indeed, I lobbied almost every member of the Labour Cabinet about it to try to get them to understand the importance of avoiding individual registration, which will do immeasurable harm to our party in the longer term. Now we have it in place at a time when local authorities’ budgets in this area are not ring-fenced and when local authorities will not place the money that is necessary to ensure a high level of individual registration. I welcome my noble friend’s amendment, and I hope only that the Government will accept it. They will not, of course, because they too have been convinced by this rubbish recommendation from the Electoral Commission, which should have known better.