Electro-lobby plan quashed

PLANS to introduce electronic voting in the House of Commons appeared last night to have been dropped, writes Fran Abrams.

Although the Leader of the House, Ann Taylor, said recently that she was "personally quite keen" on the idea, the Prime Minister's spokesman told reporters yesterday she did not support it.

The issue of swipe-card voting was the only aspect of weekend reports about the modernisation of Parliament which was not comprehensively squashed yesterday.

Downing Street said claims that Tony Blair had blocked the modernisation of the State Opening of Parliament were completely untrue.

The matter was one for the Earl Marshall and not for Ann Taylor, and "to my certain knowledge the Prime Minister has not expressed a view," the spokesman said.