Lord Shamash (Lab)

My Lords, I remember attending the Law Commission, some 10 years ago if not more, when it promised to bring forward a new electoral registration Act, together with a review of the whole of election law. I declare my interest as the solicitor of the Labour Party in relation to election law. The case for consolidating and indeed modernising election law is very strong, because the current system is fragmented, outdated, confusing and increasingly unworkable. Consolidation and modernisation itself would bring a single coherent legislative framework; modernising the rules would make election law fit for digital campaigning, which is the world we live in now, whereas election law currently is very much paper-based; consistency across elections would mean that we would all know, whichever election we were standing in, that the rules were more or less the same; and it would lower the administrative burden and make clearer offences and enforcement. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that the Law Commission brings forward a review, certainly within the next couple of years?