That is an excellent question to which I cannot give an immediate answer, but I promise to write to the noble Lord. However, that in turn raises the question about the future of the census, another historical document that we will have to come back to. We are beginning to move away from a paper register that is maintained locally and therefore not easily accessible, to online registration, which in the future will make it much easier for those interested in family history to access.
The Government take the handling of personal information seriously and are keen to ensure, in the context of the move to individual electoral registration, that electors are able to make a fully informed choice on the edited register. There should be sufficient balanced and impartial information on electoral registration forms to ensure that electors understand what the different versions of the registers are and the purposes for which their data may be used.
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As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, remarked, the edited register serves a variety of purposes, some of which are commercial and some of which are very clearly valuable in social terms. To this end, the Government have therefore proposed, in the draft secondary IER legislation, that application forms will include a clear statement on the processing of data supplied by the individual and are looking at the language used to describe the uses of the registers. The Government will be working closely with the Electoral Commission to ensure that the forms will be user-friendly, clear and straightforward.
The Government believe that providing electors with a choice of an opt-out, alongside sufficient information to allow the individual to make an informed choice, provides electors with appropriate protection and control. So long as electors have an informed choice and can alter their preferences, there is little practical difference between an opt-out and an opt-in. We are not aware of any large-scale demand for change in the current situation.
In view of all these important safeguards, I can see no reason for removing the current opt-out arrangements. I therefore thank the noble Lord for the debate but ask him to accept the Government’s assurances and to withdraw this amendment.