I thank noble Lords for their contributions today. I will go through a few of the issues that were brought up.
First, the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, is absolutely right: the instruments in this amending SI had no effect on the elections held on 2 May. The changes to the franchise for EU citizens came into force on 7 May; that date was chosen specifically so that there would be no impact on the May local elections.
We have heard quite a lot about consolidation, as we did when the Elections Bill, which is now an Act, was going through. I think that will be for subsequent Governments to look at. This is complex; there are huge numbers of pieces of legislation impacting on top of each other within the elections arena. As the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Khan of Burnley, brought up, that is something which will have to be done by subsequent Governments.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, brought up the numbers affected. I do not know those numbers, but I will have a look and write to her. On the oversight occurring in the first place, as I said, I apologise—but it is recognised that, even with stringent checks in quite complex pieces of legislation such as this, there is always a chance of unintentional errors. Regrettably, sometimes they are overlooked and, unfortunately, this is one such case, but the main thing is that we are dealing with it now.
On the issues around differences in voting rights for residency, this instrument is focused on amending a definition in existing regulations. Those regulations have already been passed in Parliament—as I say, they came into force on 7 May—and there are no further plans to revise any of them. I remember well the debates held on the changes being introduced by those regulations, and this is not the time to go over them again. It is certainly not the time at this early stage, when the regulations have only just gone into law, to put forward further revisions.
The Electoral Commission will keep an eye on all these issues as they are put into place, as will the department. Of course, if there are any issues or problems, we will keep an eye on that. That was a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley. It is important that we keep a close eye on any changes, particularly to electoral legislation, as it is complex. If anybody who wants to register to vote goes on to the Electoral Commission’s website, all the details are on there—and people do that. Also, our wonderful election officers in our local authorities are usually the first contact that people have. Even if they are complex voters, all the information will be given to them by our local authorities as well, which is important.
I think that is everything I had to answer. I know that the House believes that ensuring the smooth running of our democratic processes is of paramount importance. This amendment is therefore important, and I thank noble Lords for supporting the instrument to get this right. I commend it the Committee.