My Lords, my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth is absolutely right to raise this issue in this context because the change to individual electoral registration provides a precise opportunity to think
about this matter again. As he properly said, it already improves the situation and it is the right moment to be looking at this issue.
However, I confess that I am somewhat bemused. The most persuasive case for retaining the edited register has come from charities and credit agencies, both of which have a proper and natural interest that we should recognise. Theirs is a proper use of this data. It is rather unusual to hear a Conservative, of all people, apparently decrying that very proper interest of such organisations in accurate data of this sort.
It may be that the noble Lord, Lord Norton, is introducing a new idea, as he has done just now, by suggesting that some organisations of that sort should have access to the full register. That brings us to a very difficult problem of definition because under Amendment 56, he is apparently defining what a commercial purpose is. A credit agency would certainly be a commercial purpose. Is seeking to raise money for a charity not also a commercial purpose? I find it slightly bewitching at this time of night that a dedicated Conservative Peer appears to denigrate the idea of having a commercial purpose at all, as if it is somehow a disreputable activity. I therefore have a problem of definition under Amendment 56.
However, I return to my original point. It is perfectly right, proper and appropriate that we should ask the Government at this stage to be thinking about this matter. Amendment 57 is clearly the least objectionable option that the noble Lord has put forward, but I wonder whether, if electors had to opt into an edited register, many would do so and whether the whole exercise would become a wasteful bureaucratic nightmare. The opt-in option would, in that sense, be a red herring.
However, this is obviously the right moment to be asking Ministers to think again, and I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will do just that. If he is unable to make progress in persuading the Committee in one direction or another, perhaps this is a matter that we will have to return to on Report.