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Mr. Bercow: Is my right hon. Friend distinguishing between a fact being verifiable and a fact having been verified? There is surely a significant difference between the two. Will he explain whether his concern is that something should be capable of verification and whether, for example, we are to rely upon documents or circumstantial evidence? Or is he making the highly unlikely suggestion for a libertarian Conservative of his high credentials that there should be direct investigation of the whereabouts of particular individuals applying for the list on the date in question?

8.30 pm

Mr. Forth: My hon. Friend has, as ever, gone to the nub of the argument with unerring accuracy, and he forces me to come down on one side or other of the fence that he has erected. In this case, I would be prepared to leave it, as we must when considering a Bill of this kind, to the expertise, dedication and discretion of the registration officer to decide the precise mechanisms to be used to verify the contents of the register. My hon. Friend has conjured up a nightmare vision of registration officers acting as though they were Customs and Excise officers--[Interruption.] I thought that that would shock my hon. Friends: it was intended to because I wanted to wake them up. We must avoid that approach, but it is important to ensure that registration officers possess the necessary mechanisms to do the job. I hope that I have done enough to satisfy my hon. Friend.

Mr. Brady: My right hon. Friend appears to be setting out a burden of proof which is just as great to demonstrate the presence of a person in his home as it is to demonstrate his absence. I think that that is wrong, because one should be able to state that one was present in one's home and have that accepted as a fact. If registration officers wish to prove one's absence, that should be verifiable.

Mr. Forth: My hon. Friend is leading me into ethereal territory--

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. That is the last thing we want.

Mr. Forth: In that case, I shall return--

Mr. Bercow: May I attempt to assist my right hon. Friend by encapsulating the solution to the conundrum that he poses? Does he agree that for this purpose, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?

Mr. Forth: We are making progress.

Mr. Fabricant: I do not wish to complicate matters, or to introduce a Venn diagram in the manner of my hon.

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Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), but surely what he was trying to say was that it is impossible to ask, "Hands up those children who are not here."

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the House that this is a debate, not a question and answer session. If the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) wishes to conduct a tutorial, I am sure that he could see his hon. Friends afterwards.

Mr. Forth: Indeed I will, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is a complicated argument about difficult concepts and it arose because we were exploring the meaning of the word "verifiable" in the context of amendment No. 5. However, I concede that we may have over-complicated the issue. We have probably teased enough out of it to give the Minister the opportunity to clarify the matter. He has followed the argument with ever more glazed eyes, but a useful brief may come to his assistance at any moment. I am confident that he will not need it.

I shall move on rapidly, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I try to be aware of your facial expressions and body language. Amendments Nos. 6, 7 and 8 cover different territory and we are, mercifully, out of the area of concept and into the area of numbers. Amendment No. 6 is a probing amendment. Clause 3 states:

"For the purpose of determining whether a person is resident in a dwelling on the relevant date for the purposes of section 4 above, his residence in the dwelling shall not be taken to have been interrupted by reason of his absence in the performance of any duty arising from or incidental to any office, service or employment held or undertaken by him if . . . he intends to resume actual residence within six months of giving up such residence, and will not be prevented from doing so by the performance of that duty".

Amendment No. 6 suggests that the period should be three months, and I invite the Minister to explain why it should be six months. I believe that three months would be more appropriate, but I am open to persuasion. I am confident that the Minister will be able to persuade us of his reasons, but I would like them to be put on the record.

Mr. Fabricant: Is my right hon. Friend as confused as I am? Earlier in the debate, the number of months necessary to establish residency in Northern Ireland was put at three, but the number of months in clause 3 is six. We heard earlier about inconsistencies between the laws in Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, but this is an inconsistency between one part of the Bill and another.

Mr. Forth: I do not wish to pre-empt the Minister's explanation, but the three months mentioned in the earlier debate about Northern Ireland related to the length of time that one must be able to establish residency before being able to register, but in this case we are talking about how long someone can be away from his established address but still remain validly registered. In the context of the new, dynamic, rolling register, six months may be too long if we wish to guarantee the reliability, validity and security of the register.

We are launching ourselves into an experiment in democracy. I am not convinced that we need the Bill at all--although I do not wish to pre-empt my speech on Third Reading--but if we are to have this misbegotten,

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ill-thought-out and unnecessary measure, we must do what we can to make the register secure. We must be able to guarantee to the electorate that the new process will be tamper proof and cannot be misused.

Mr. Gray: My right hon. Friend is persuasive, but I am puzzled by his argument. I can imagine many circumstances in which people--such as officers and other ranks in the Merchant Navy, or those serving in the Army, Royal Air Force or Royal Navy--would be absent from home for longer than three months, if not six months. Should not the amendment increase the time that a person is permitted to be away from home without being taken off the register?

Mr. Forth: I accept that point. I am not aware that there are special arrangements for the military.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. George Howarth) indicated assent.

Mr. Forth: The Under-Secretary of State is nodding. I am not surprised. The arrangements are probably buried somewhere in a schedule--[Interruption.] He confirms that. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) makes a good point, which we should always bear in mind, but most military people often take the opportunity of proxy votes, postal votes or whatever. However, it would be useful if the Minister said a few words about the matter when he replies to the debate.

I come to the next provision that we are seeking to probe through a little amendment. Clause 3(4) says:

"For the purposes of subsection (3) above"--

the one that we have just been considering--

"any temporary period of unemployment shall be disregarded."

That worries me. When I see a term such as "temporary" in this context in a Bill, I wonder whether it is the proper word to use. It gives rise to enormous potential for interpretation by different registration officers. It is possible that the Minister will want to tell me that the provision will be more closely specified in regulations. That would be half an argument.

Mr. Fabricant: Does my right hon. Friend share my suspicion--nay, cynicism--that the inclusion of "temporary" with regard to unemployment might be an example of the politicisation of the Home Office?

Mr. Forth: I do not think that I share my hon. Friend's view. It is just sloppy drafting, not a conspiracy. It is a cock-up, which happens so often these days, I regret to say, even in something as important as legislation. The use of a term as variable and as open to diverse interpretation as "temporary" is unwise in such a Bill. That is why my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border and I have suggested in our amendment that we insert a period of unemployment of less than three months. It would put beyond doubt and beyond interpretation what the registration officer should have in mind when he does his necessary work and verifies the register's contents. I should like to think that the Minister will accept the amendment. I will not die in the last ditch

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over it at this stage. If he were to tell me that the period of three months was not right, but some other period was, I would go along with him.

If we leave a word such as "temporary" in the Bill, how would that provide sufficient security in the nationwide implementation of the measure, were it ever to come to that? Indeed, does it provide sufficient guidance for either local authorities when they contemplate pilot schemes, or registration officers when they have to implement the provision? I do not believe that it does.

We are pursuing a constant theme, to which we will return during discussion of future groups of amendments: is there sufficient tightness, sufficient security, in all the measures to make them reliable and effective? That is the thrust of my argument.

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