Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

I like the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David), but I fear that spending too many evenings in parliamentary Labour party meetings has made him quite paranoid, given that the previous Government advanced the same substantive proposals for individual electoral registration in Northern Ireland and that the consultation document that was published in 2005 was followed by the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2006, which gave rise to individual electoral registration in Northern Ireland. Neither we nor anyone else accused those measures of being rushed through. The hon. Gentleman must be the first Front Bencher to argue against the substantive proposals of the previous Government. The bigger question is why the integrity, autonomy and authority of the electoral register should be more important in Northern Ireland than in England, Wales and Scotland.