My Lords, these short debates about weekend voting are always frustrating for me. People always say, “Where is the evidence that it would be a popular thing to do?” yet we never have the pilots from which we could gain the evidence. It is rather like saying, “Well, I do not like Chinese food, but I have never been into a Chinese restaurant”. Unless you try something, you do not have much evidence. It seems to me that there is much evidence already there. We know that people of retirement age have a far greater propensity to vote than people of working age. Common sense tells you that a factor might be that retired people can vote easily during a Thursday when the whole of the day is at their disposal; whereas there are people of working age and in work, perhaps also of the age where they have children to drop off at school on a morning, who work a full day and pick up their kids from school and have much less time in the evening. Perhaps that might be the reason why fewer people who are not of retirement age vote. We do not know until we do these pilots.
We hear the argument about it costing more, but on the other hand, with things such as storing ballot papers, we vote in European elections on a Thursday and the ballot papers have to be stored until a Sunday and then counted. If you voted on a Saturday or Sunday, you could reduce those costs. However, I agree with the Minister that this is not the appropriate vehicle to make such a change and on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.