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Political Parties and Elections Bill

It may be helpful if I make a brief intervention. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and I have had a most agreeable series of jousts over the past eight years on any matter relating to Westminster. As soon as that word appeared in the document that he was about to read I could see that it was another such example. I do not take offence in the slightest. The only thing that I did not know until he reached the end of his remarks was whether he would say who the signatory was. I was perfectly clear that if he did not do so, I would get up and say that it was in fact me. This is not in the context of a confessional but, in the context of the doubt in the noble Lord’s mind about who might have composed it, I will say that I also wrote it. Without seeing it, I have no grounds for supposing that I knew anything about the postal vote application. But the noble Lord may tell me that there is a reference to the postal vote on my part. I do not believe that there was.