My Lords, Amendment 58A stands in my name and in the name of my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark. There will be a key number—a target—in any recall. It is not like a normal election where, regardless of the number of promises that we manage to get, we still have to have more than the other guy in order to win. However, a recall is not the same issue. Once a specified number—10% of the registered electorate—is reached, a by-election is automatically triggered. Therefore it is vital that everyone knows what this figure is well in advance, so that it is not being argued about at the same time that signatures are being scrutinised, verified and counted. The amendment therefore requires the petition officer to publish the number of people who are on the electoral register the day that the Speaker announces that a recall condition has been met—in other words, the number at the point at which the 10% is to be counted. That is vital in order to have absolute clarity about the precise number of potential voters that constitute 10% of the constituency. The petition officer will need to know this number anyway, so everyone else should know it.
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I ask the Minister to reflect on what he said on an earlier amendment when I think he said that no information was given out on an election day. In fact, I think that the acting returning officer and the people in charge of each polling station give to us, on the hour, as agents, candidates and sub-agents, the numbers that have voted at the polling station. That is incredibly important to us sitting in the committee rooms because we can work out where we have to get our people out. When the Minister was saying that trying to keep the rules during the eight weeks the same as they are for general elections would enable numbers to be given out during that eight weeks, I think the implication of his answer was that he did not think that was desirable. We might, therefore, want to look at that. We would not want those rolling totals but we do think that we should know the target number.
I should also like to ask the Minister about the register during the eight-week period. Page 14 of the Recall of MPs Bill memorandum concerning the regulations states:
“Unlike a poll where the register will be used for one day, the register will be in operation for 8 weeks and therefore a mechanism will need to be in place so that the register held at the signing place is updated to deal with changes as a result of a clerical error, court order, or where an application to sign by post or proxy has been granted”.
Given that adding names to the register could also affect the 10% figure, we would like to know from the Minister whether it does or whether the number will be frozen at the beginning, regardless of any that are added quite legitimately. Obviously, if it increases the 10% figure, it will be important to keep an eye on that. Will the Minister elaborate on what form the mechanism will take and how it will work in practice? I beg to move.