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Electoral Administration Bill

I am a bit worried about the Minister’s response. Paragraph 2 of the introduction to the consultation paper says:"““The project, which is being managed by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister . . . will provide one of the essential building blocks on which multi-channel, e-enabled elections will be built by helping to modernise the electoral registration process in Great Britain””." I accept that that is not the Minister’s department, but, as the document goes on to say, the project,"““is co-sponsored by the Department for Constitutional Affairs””." Is the Minister saying that to move to the scenario outlined in the consultation paper there would have to be separate legislation? A scheme is being proposed but we do not know what it is. If it is limited only to the protection or amalgamation of a lot of electoral registers that are being kept for no purpose, that does not seem a frightfully good use of either time or money. We can bring electoral registers together but there must be a purpose in doing so. The purpose is clear in the Bill—it is to move on from having local registers to being able to hold elections in other ways. I hesitate even to look as though I am contradicting the noble Baroness, but we need to unpick this.