My Lords, I warmly welcome this shorter regulatory period for the 2015 election, for the reasons that the noble and learned Lord stated: it will enable the Electoral Commission to prepare the guidance to educate the people who will have to conform to it. However, I express the hope that in the review, the review body will look seriously at the recommendation of the commission which I chaired, that for third-party campaigners there should be a six-month period. This seven and a half-month period is absolutely right for this election but a six-month period should be reconsidered afterwards.
Perhaps I might end on one final point. We are all very much aware that this whole process has, towards the end, been extraordinarily compressed. Normally, the Government would listen first, bring forward amendments in Committee and then report those back on Report. We did not have any government amendments in Committee. The Government listened, and I am glad that they did, but this means that this Report stage has been a kind of compression of Committee and Report all in one. The implication of this is that I very much hope that the Minister will take seriously those amendments that we did not press to a vote, while hoping that he might come back at Third Reading having thought again. Because of this very compressed period, that would be a great help to the House.