My Lords, this weekend, as I was preparing for the amendments to which I have put my name, I made the huge mistake of looking at the other amendments being discussed. As a result, I had a look at this group. I probably should declare an interest as the wife of a Conservative MP; therefore, our household is directly affected by this amendment and these clause stand part notices. I wholeheartedly agree with everything said by the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.
I have two additional points to make, because I am horrified by these clauses. First, did I miss something, in that we are now defining an adult as being 14-plus? At what point did that happen? I thought that you had the right to vote at 18, so I do not understand why electoral direct marketing should be free to bombard our 14 year-olds. That was my first additional point.
Secondly, I come back to what I said on the first day of Committee: this is all about trust. I really worry that Clauses 114 and 115 risk undermining two important areas where trust really matters. The first is our electoral system and the second is the data that we give our elected representatives, when we go to them not as party representatives but as our representatives elected to help us.
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I have seen this as the wife of a politician. Many people go to their MP who are not supporters of that MP’s party or even of them as an individual, but they
need their help. In doing so, they give their data, and I do not want to create any more barriers that reduce the trust that some of the most vulnerable in society have in our elected representatives. We live at a time when social media does enough of that for us, and we do not need to make it even easier for our electoral campaigning to diminish the trust the electorate has in the political system.
This is a fundamental group of amendments. It takes quite a lot for me to stand up on something so party political—I think my husband will be completely horrified that I did this homework over the weekend—but I ask the Minister to reconsider and to listen hard to the considered views, probably more considered than mine, on the Opposition Benches calling for more consultation before something such as this is introduced.