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Electoral Administration Bill

My hon. Friends have revealed a level of doubt about arrangements in Northern Ireland that shows that we are right to proceed expeditiously with pilots before we embark on a national roll-out. I hope that hon. Members agree that what we are discussing is not an issue of principle. We all agree that we should have high levels of security. We all agree that no one should fiddle the vote, and that the system should be proofed against that. We all agree that there should be full entitlement to registration. We are discussing how we go about implementing an improvement to the operation in that respect, and our argument is that we should proceed on the basis of evidence and that we should conduct a pilot. The Opposition’s argument is that we should go straight ahead and do it. That should be a narrow gap between us. We will proceed expeditiously with the pilots. [Hon. Members: ““Pilot the scheme now.””] We intend to run the pilots now. The Department has already drawn up the prospectus for the pilots on signatures and dates of birth.