I think the noble Baroness would agree that the electoral issues in Northern Ireland are rather different from those in the rest of the United Kingdom.
As I have just said, studying a phenomenon over time requires a careful disaggregation of the effects. Looking at the gross numbers does not tell you anything. Specific studies which carefully disaggregate the impact of particular measures are necessary. I find it difficult to see how one can sustain the argument that introducing a particular impediment to vote will have a zero effect.
As I was about to say, at Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord True, in what I call precautionary mode, referred to locking your door to prevent burglaries even though your house has not been burgled. However, it is striking that if you go to the Isle of Sark, where there are no burglaries, no one locks the door. It is the presence of burglars that encourages people to lock their door. If the incidence of fraud is one, as the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, told us, and the cost now is £180 million, or whatever the number is, to prevent one occurrence, is that value for money?
6 pm
We should be actively seeking measures to do what the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, encouraged, which is to increase participation and involvement, to increase registration and, perhaps, to think about why we have elections on Thursdays, which are typically working days for so many people. There are a whole series of things that we could be worrying about on the question of increasing participation, but the Government have made the choice to spend a significant amount of money on this particular issue. I would like to hear from the Minister why it is better to spend that sum of money on this issue rather than, for example, on a campaign to increase registration and participation. That seems to be the real cost question that should be faced.