---

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment, on which I will enlarge just a bit. We have good traditions and symbolism in British democracy. I have been an election agent and a candidate. I thought that it was the law that either the agent or candidate could see inside each ballot box before it was locked. That happened regularly. Perhaps it was only in council elections—I am not sure, but I used to see it quite often. I agree very strongly with entrenching the symbolism so that it is not just anyone who sees that part of the procedure. Perhaps we could embellish our democracy a bit by making a bit of a tradition and a bit of a show, to get people there and show that the box is indeed empty. While folk may scorn that type of thing, nevertheless it would show clearly the symbolism that our democracy is vibrant and seen to be so.