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Electoral Administration Bill

My Lords, we still have to come to postal voting, about which Her Majesty’s Government are obsessed, but the weaknesses of which were further exposed in the local government elections held a week and half ago. I declare a forward interest in that matter as a voter in Tower Hamlets and, I have to say, as a voter in person. Sixty or so years ago, the then Home Secretary Herbert Morrison went to a great deal of trouble to make sure that British service men abroad were able to vote in the 1945 general election, so much so that although polling day was 5 July 1945, to enable the votes to arrive the results were not actually counted until 26 July. As my noble friend said from the Front Bench, Her Majesty’s Government are asking a lot of British service men today, so it does not seem too much to ask of Her Majesty’s Government that they should make it possible for service men fighting in the interests of democracy to able to vote in the democratic process itself. Anything short of that is a casual insult. For the reasons given on all sides of the House I do not hold the Minister herself responsible, but she must remember a service man’s metaphor: the Minister in the front line for the particular period carries the responsibility on behalf of the whole of Her Majesty’s Government at that stage.