My Lords, I am grateful to those who have contributed, and especially to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for his support on this amendment. I do not regard the responses that I have heard as particularly satisfactory. The Minister’s objection appears to be that electors are not bright enough to understand the difference between an opt-in and an opt-out. However,
we do not know whether citizens are making an informed decision because they are not making that opt-in choice. It is notable, as happened in Committee, that neither my noble friend Lord Tyler nor my noble friend the Minister addressed the core issue of principle that I raised. The objection was really practical—who benefits from the edited register—rather than on the core point about the use of personal data, how they are protected and whether people make an informed choice. In many respects, the points made by my noble friend Lord Tyler bore out the point I was making.
The fundamental point is that we place stress on the protection of personal data. As my noble friend Lord Tyler said, we had long discussions leading up to the Act in 2000. I took part in those discussions and made the case that what we did then did not go far enough in terms of the protection of personal data. It is definitely something we need to pursue and return to. As far as I am concerned, the Government need to think again. As the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Wills, have said, the Government need to engage in serious research on this. It is not something that is going to go away. It is something we will doubtless come back to; indeed, we will come back to it.
On this occasion, we are clearly not making much progress but at least we have put down a marker. We will return to it because the protection of personal data is extraordinarily important. There is a core principle: people must give their consent. If the edited version is going to collapse because they do not give their consent, then I am sorry, but they must give it. In my view, electors are sufficiently intelligent to understand clear instructions on the point of an opt-in and opt-out. If the benefits are clearly explained then at least they can make an informed choice. However, it really must be up to electors rather than the Government making assumptions on their behalf. As I say, we will return to this, but in the mean time I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.