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Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response. I remain concerned about his reply, but I

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shall not take the matter any further at this stage. However, because the Electoral Commission is beginning to develop its guidance, it would be helpful to see at least some of it before we progress to a later stage. There are two matters that will be fundamental to the consequences of the Bill: first, the contents of the pilot order; and, secondly, the Electoral Commission's guidance.

Both now and in Committee we have raised real and practical concerns, based on other peoples'—and partly our own—knowledge of what can cause an election to be flawed. I would be grateful to see what is proposed and to have an opportunity to comment. I accept that making a returning officer deliver ballot papers by hand may be too onerous, but I shall look at the matter again before the next stage. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 10:

Page 2, line 14, at end insert—

"( ) The pilot order must make provision for the electors in each relevant European electoral region and associate local government regions to have easy access to supported delivery points."

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the amendment is about how many supported delivery points there are in a region holding a pilot election. The Government will be pleased to see that we have dropped our original amendment incorporated in our new clause in Committee on the administration of the pilot election. There we endeavoured to specify that there should be an obligation on local authorities and returning officers to ensure that any elector who wished to do so could vote in the traditional way in a ballot box at a polling station on 10 June. We have listened to the Government's detailed description on the proposed supported delivery points and we thank the Minister for the extra detail spelt out in the policy paper on pages 12 and 13.

We are happy in principle with the current proposals. We have been told by the Government that,

"at a supported delivery point it will be possible to return a completed ballot paper; complete a ballot paper in a private area—with some form of assistance if required; and view the explanatory literature about the elections".

Our concerns focus on how many SDPs will be provided. In Committee we specified in an amendment that every local government ward in each region piloting the elections should have a facility for posting a ballot form in person on the main day of polling. We have had a rethink after reading the Minister's response to that amendment and the subsequent comments of other noble Lords during the debate. Somehow we wish to channel the discretion of the electoral administrators in the number of delivery points that there should be in each local government area.

We know that at least one SDP will be provided in each principal local government area, but with the ability for electoral administrators to provide more at their discretion. That is intended to cover those local government areas where transport links are poor

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or the area is particularly large. As the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, pointed out perceptively in Committee,

"it is not very likely that local authorities will incur the expense of doing that".—[Official Report, 26/1/04; col. GC46.]

It is further emphasised by the comments in the policy paper on page 13:

"In considering the number and opening hours of delivery points, electoral administrators will need to take into account that delivery points in the local government all-postal pilots were only used by a very small minority of the electorate . . . and that a strong case will need to be made before the costs of additional delivery points are paid".

I fear that it is unlikely that such a "strong case" will be made and that there may be failure by local authorities to exercise that discretion to provide extra delivery points.

Will the Minister comment on that discretion? Is there any recourse to demand more than one delivery point in particular local government areas? Can the Minister clarify the idea behind the comment in the policy paper that, at least,

"one SDP will be open in each local authority area on the day of the poll"?

If a number of SDPs were made available after ballot papers were sent out, would not confusion be caused if only one was available on polling day?

The amendment would place an obligation on electoral administrators to make sure that all voters in the pilot elections had "easy access" to a delivery point. That may be a subjective turn of phrase, but it makes the point that electoral administrators have a responsibility to ensure that there are sufficient points. It would then be possible under Clause 4 for the Electoral Commission to examine whether that was the case and if not, why not. That would focus the efforts of the electoral administrators in each local government area to examine properly the convenience of the location of the delivery points—and thereby the convenience for the electorate. I beg to move.

Lord Rennard: My Lords, the supported delivery points are important and will be of assistance to a number of voters. Lack of privacy is among the concerns that we have had about people voting by post. In some cases people might prefer to enjoy the spirit of going along to the polling station and perhaps feeling that they can vote in privacy without other members of the household seeing how they are casting their vote. The problem with the amendment is over how one defines "easy access".

I have already made my own representations about the order, with some suggestions that may be helpful. Providing one supported delivery point in each council area may not be nearly sufficient. For example, that would mean that if there was a pilot in Manchester there would be only one supported delivery point in the whole city. Perhaps in Newcastle, where we now think that the proposals will happen, the appropriate number of SDPs may be one per local government ward. In a principal local authority the order could say that there should be one special delivery point per local

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government ward. Beyond that we might leave the decision to the returning officer's discretion, but at least it would provide more guidance on the number of points that would be appropriate.

Lord Filkin: My Lords, this is again one of those classic debates that we have, whichever party is in government, about the degree to which one specifies the means as well as the ends. The House will be aware of our broad position on the matter—that a balance has to be struck between ensuring that at least one supported delivery point is provided in each principal local government area and giving discretion to electoral administrators to provide more when they believe that that is sensible and desirable.

Clearly we are talking about all-postal ballots, not dual running. We are not talking about having both, but at what level we need to have a facility for those who wish physically to cast a vote in person, for any reason, or to vote late on the last day—or for any other reason. It is germane that extremely limited use has been made of supported delivery points in previous pilots. Our evidence from the survey has been that the average was that about 2 per cent of electors used a supported delivery point. The highest case was in Darlington, where 3.7 per cent of electors chose to use the SDP. It is particularly interesting that there has been no correlation between the number of SDPs provided and the number of people who used them, which is slightly counter-intuitive.

In Guildford, four delivery points were provided in a previous local government pilot postal election and 2.2 per cent of electors chose to use them. By comparison, in Gateshead 16 delivery points were provided, yet the number of electors who chose to use them remained at just 2.2 per cent. In Doncaster, 21 delivery points were used by only 1.93 per cent. That is a variation which shows that while we are right to say that such a facilities must be provided, it is hardly the most persuasive case for the Government to prescribe how many should be set up.

I shall take on board the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, concerning point 10.4 of the guidance. I believe that we need to reflect on whether confusion arises as a result of some SDPs being open on the day and some not. I do not wish to raise excitement on that point but, if a local authority has more than one SDP, we may need to reflect on the level of burden involved in keeping it open on the day rather than shutting it beforehand. However, perhaps I may reflect on that matter without giving a commitment.

At heart, we feel that responsibility for deciding on the level of additional SDPs to be provided should be placed on returning officers. I do not believe that we can easily specify that with a rule from government. Certainly, as I believe I signalled at earlier stages to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, it would be very burdensome to specify that there should be one for every electoral ward. For those reasons, I hope that, at least for now, the noble Baroness will be minded to withdraw the amendment.

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6.30 p.m.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I thank the Minister very much. I want to question one figure. With regard to the pilot that has already taken place, did he refer to no more than 2 or 3 per cent of the electorate or 2 or 3 per cent of those voting? We really need to know the answer to that.

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