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Political Parties and Elections Bill

This has been a remarkable hour and a half. Through a group of new clauses about data sharing, the Government have announced a reform of the entire electoral registration system, and in a wholly new direction. It should be said that my party has called for that new direction for some time; we certainly welcome it and we thank the Government for it. I should also say that, unlike some Conservatives, I have always accepted the Government's other point, on which the Minister spent a good deal of time before he got to the details of the major concession. It is that if we are to move to a system of individual registration, there needs to be some preparation and a comprehensive study of the possible pitfalls and problems. We do not want there to be a move to an individual registration system that results in a great fall in the number of people registered. We would then have to spend years and years trying to scramble back up to where we were at the beginning.