Corrections

Official Report, 8 November 2005: In col. 257, before "Question put, That the amendment be made", insert: Mr. Heath: I am grateful to all those who participated in this brief debate, but hearing the Minister say that it was outrageous to suggest that an electoral experiment—a pilot—should be extended to anything as large as a region when the Government had no compunction about forcing four regions through an electoral experiment only a little while ago against the express views of the Electoral Commission and every single party represented in the House other than the Government takes the biscuit. David Cairns: We did not move immediately to all-postal regional pilots. They were piloted at a local and voluntary level and lessons were learned before the regional voting pilots that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. It would help if he were to clarify that that was the point that I was making. Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman again attempts to clarify what he said, but the fact remains that, following that election, we had the biggest crisis of confidence in the electoral system of this country that we have ever seen. For the first time, we had people genuinely doubting whether the election in which they had just taken part was conducted freely and fairly. We should not tolerate that. What is the Government's response? Are they prepared to go into the next general election with the same postal voting precautions in place? Yes, they are. Their answer is, "We'll do something, but manana—tomorrow, whatever." That is not a satisfactory position. We need to do something urgently. The Electoral Commission has given us a clear steer about how we should go forward and I wish to test the opinion of the Committee.