LIBERAL Democrat peer Lord Greaves has tabled a series of new questions to the Government relating to postal and proxy votes after what he claimed was a "lily-livered" reply to his question about postal vote irregularities in the House of Lords on Tuesday.

Lord Greaves is now following up his question, in which he queried the safeguards for postal voting, by sending a detailed account of the allegations of irregularities in postal voting in Pendle to Lord Falconer, to Charles Clarke at the Labour Party and to the Electoral Commission.

He has also tabled a series of new questions to the Government, including one asking them to restrict the issue of proxy votes -- where someone else votes instead of a voter -- to people who are not in the UK at the time.

Another of the questions seeks to ask the Government whether it considers that the traditional twin safeguards against electoral fraud, of requiring an elector to vote in person and in secret, still apply and if so how they are to be enforced under universal postal voting, internet voting or voting by text message.

He said: "The fact is that people go to a polling station for a purpose - so we all know it is them casting the vote and not their husband, uncle or godfather or just someone who has picked up their post - and the booths are there to make sure that the vote is secret."

Coun Azhar Ali, the leader of Pendle Council, agreed that something had to be done to avoid such irregularities.