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Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): My hon. Friend was taking me with him until he said that he understood the reason for the urgency and seemed to offer his support for it. For the life of me, I cannot see what is urgent about this. I suggest the opposite: there can never be anything urgent about making radical, experimental changes to electoral law. I hope that my hon. Friend was not suggesting that he endorsed any spurious urgency that the Government have attached to the measure.
Mr. Greenway: My right hon. Friend puts me in some difficulty, so I will pour myself a glass of water and pause for thought.
Mr. David Maclean (Penrith and The Border): Whisky, John.
Mr. Greenway: Alcoholic beverages are reserved for the Chancellor, I think, and his day is coming soon.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) must understand that our party, to which we are absolutely committed, had a representative on a working party that made recommendations about changes in electoral arrangements. We have considered whether it is sensible to accept the recommendation that there should be pilot schemes in respect of different ways of voting, on different days and with different procedures. [Interruption.] I hope that my right hon. Friend is listening, because what I have to say is important to him, given his constituency.
The Greater London Authority Act 1999 allows for changes in voting in the Greater London Assembly elections. Parliament has already approved that. If this Bill is enacted, it will allow similar experiments to take place in other parts of the country. I do not happen to have local elections in my constituency this spring, but many others do.
I do not want my right hon. Friend to think that we do not have concerns about other elements of the Bill. The fact that we have tabled amendments on issues such as the local connection declaration--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord):
Order. The hon. Gentleman has allowed himself to be tempted away from the new clause. Perhaps he can return to it.
Mr. Greenway:
I was about to do that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I was simply going to say that we have concerns about other aspects of the Bill and have tabled amendments accordingly, and I am sure that hon. Members will seek to catch your eye to express their views on them.
We have tabled the new clause because we believe that the opt-out box provision is the most unsatisfactory part of the Bill, and that it has nothing to do with the main thrust of the recommendations on the introduction of rolling registers or changes in the conduct of elections, which is what the working party was really about.
We have all been sent on a wild goose chase that has nothing to do with the central requirement of the working party to examine our electoral procedures. Had the provision been put in any other Bill, it would not have been rushed as it has been; there would have been much more time for consultation with industry; and we would have had a much more settled position for Parliament to consider on Report and Third Reading than is the case tonight.
Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne):
I want to add to the interesting comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). My hon. Friend is keen to co-operate, but just because some of us do not approve of the way in which the elections for the mayor of London are to be conducted, there is no reason why we should have two lots of elections carried out in the
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. Before the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) responds, he should be aware that that intervention, too, was well wide of the new clause. I would be grateful if he would deal with that.
Mr. Greenway:
I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I would simply remind my hon. Friend that there was an experiment on proportional representation in elections last June in which the Government got a bloody nose, as a result of which their excitement over, and enthusiasm for, PR has been greatly diminished. I ask my hon. Friend not to anticipate the outcome of the pilots, which may not be--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I have no wish to keep interrupting the hon. Gentleman's flow, but I will do so increasingly firmly unless he returns to the new clause.
Mr. Greenway:
I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
We think that clause 9 is not satisfactory, but the provisions are not central to what the Government are trying to do in the Bill. But for the urgency of the provisions, it is doubtful whether the Minister would be seeking approval for the clause, given the uncertain outcome of so many key interests of importance to our constituents. He has already acknowledged--at column 458 on Thursday--that the House should debate the matter again.
The Minister also says that he wants further consultation, and we do not doubt his word, but we think that it is not unreasonable in all the circumstances to reflect the incomplete nature of clause 9 by including in the Bill both the case for, and a commitment to, further meaningful consultation. That, in a nutshell, is what new clause 1 would do. We also want adequate time to be provided for these matters to be considered--and for representations to be made by those affected, both in industry and as individuals--before Parliament is asked to approve the regulations giving effect to the final outcome of those consultations.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham):
Will my hon. Friend confirm what is not in the new clause but may be implicit in his thinking behind it--namely, that the minimum three-month period would apply only to periods during which Parliament was sitting? Secondly--and, I think, importantly--in view of Lord Falkland's wise adage that that which it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change, does he agree that the consultation that he seeks through new clause 1 should be wide, detailed, academic and, preferably, protracted?
Mr. Greenway:
Even on his birthday, my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) is razor sharp. I am sure that we wish him many happy returns. We are all the better for having him here. He makes his own point extremely well, but I want to reflect a little further on what he said. Part of the problem is that the consultations often take place over four or five weeks during the holiday period. I am not entirely sure that Parliament needs to be sitting when consultations take place with industry, as we have a lengthy recess in the summer and autumn.
Before concluding, let me draw the attention of the House to three other issues related to this matter that remain outstanding from Thursday's debate. First, I ask the Minister again to consider the use of the full register for debt recovery. We understand that the effect of what the hon. Gentleman has thus far agreed is that credit referencing agencies will have access to the full register to assist them in advising financial institutions on whether to grant credit. That is an important agreement because it in part tackles the concerns of many hon. Members on both sides of the House about the risk and danger of social exclusion that would arise from the opt-out box and the creation of an edited register. It seems extraordinary that the Minister can conclude that the use of the full register for such credit referencing would be legitimate while its use to assist with debt recovery would not. I want the hon. Gentleman to revisit that issue in his reply.
Secondly, I asked the Minister what research his Department had undertaken into the use of the raw data in the electoral register as the sole source of names and addresses for sending unsolicited mail. He says that such mail is the main source of complaint to electoral registration offices--I think that the working party made some comment to that effect. Our understanding is that the data on the electoral register are seldom used in such a way--they are seldom the only source of names and addresses of persons to whom literature may be sent. They are more widely used as a source to verify data obtained by some other means. It follows that if the register is not to be available in any way to the direct marketing industry and those commercial organisations, they will not be able to verify and up-date their data. The consequence will be that the volume of junk mail will rise.
If electoral registration officers are already receiving complaints about the volume of unsolicited mail because people perceive that the senders obtained their names and addresses from the register--we think that that is a false perception, but it is none the less a valid one--the Minister must consider what will happen if the amount of junk mail increases. The complaints will rise and the position will get worse.
Also, if the letter to Colin Lloyd, the chief executive of the Direct Marketing Association, is a settled policy, can the Minister tell us why no new regulatory impact assessment has been carried out? There has been no such assessment of those aspects of the provisions.
Thirdly, and finally, the Minister said that direct marketing firms would not have access to the full register, as that would conflict with the European Union data protection directive. How can the directive allow credit referencing, but not screening for unsolicited mail, or indeed, use of the register by charities? Also, it appears
that only Home Office officials and the Data Protection Registrar gave evidence to the working party on data protection. Before the Minister closes his mind on the subject, would he be willing to receive a paper from the Direct Marketing Association and the CBI as they have a contrary view?
I have looked in detail at the submission of the Data Protection Registrar to the working party, and it is hardly conclusive. On the contrary, the registrar's advice appears to confirm that, provided that voters are advised of the fact, their data could be used for other purposes. In her submission, the registrar states:
"Even if such a case can be made in relation to some purposes individuals should still have a choice over the sale of their data for other purposes particularly the compilation of direct marketing lists".
Far from the registrar confirming that direct marketing use of the full register was incompatible with the data protection directive, which is enshrined in the Data Protection Act 1998, in the summary of her advice to the working party, she clearly sets out the circumstances in which it would be compatible. That is another reason for us to conclude that much of this provision has not been thought through.
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