Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Transitional Provisions) Order 2015

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wills, used the word haste, but this process has been going at a snail’s pace for years. We introduced individual electoral registration in 2002. As my noble friend Lord Lexden pointed out, the solution in dealing with the inevitable groups who tend to be underrepresented on every electoral register is not just to sit back and leave on the register loads of people who may or may not exist; as my noble friend Lord Lexden said, you target those groups. You form a schools initiative and go round the universities and the schools. We had a mobile unit that went round housing estates knocking on doors and to community centres to give people photographic ID cards so that they could use them at the electoral office if they did not have passports or driving licences. You target the people who you know are traditionally not on the registers.

As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said, the Electoral Commission is a body that the whole House respects. However, it is not a body that we take instructions from; it is a body that we listen to and consider. Take the Scottish referendum: I do not think that that was a particularly great example of good advice.

Nevertheless, we are talking about a balance of risk: the risk that people who are currently on the register will be denied a vote in the future versus the risk that people will be on the register and constituency boundaries drawn up on the basis of people who are not there at all.

There is another category of person that has not been identified. We talked about a figure of 1.9 million people. But even on the figures that we are getting more recently, that number will have reduced substantially, one way or the other, by the time that we come to December. However, that does not mean that those 1.1 million or 1.2 million people, as it will be by that stage, will not be on the electoral register; it just means that they will not be on the register at the address that they were knocked off it from.

In Belfast, there was a transition period when the process came in, and the register was printed including the names of those who were not individually registered. That is perfectly sensible and reasonable. However, a point came at which we decided to draw the line. At that point, people had to be individually registered or else they were taken off the register. In the Botanic ward in Belfast, near the university—my noble friend Lord Lexden will be very familiar with it—the number of people on the electoral register dropped by 27%. The reason was that the students, nurses, junior doctors and others in the area who occupied many of the dwellings were not there. However, they were registered at their home address in various other parts of the country. Just because a number of people are taken off the register, that does not mean that they are not voting somewhere. That is an issue that has to be taken into account, but which has not been in this debate so far.

The Act that the Minister has used to bring this provision forward provided him with the opportunity to do so. It could have said “2016”, but it included the provision that it could be brought in earlier. Presumably, therefore, at that stage, the Minister and the House saw circumstances in which there could be a variation in the timing of this process.

As I said to someone rather light-heartedly, even with these measures being introduced, it was lily-livered legislation. For example, it does not deal with the barking mad idea of postal votes on demand. Also, people still need to have photographic ID—there are huge gaps. However, I do not believe in the blood-curdling prognosis that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has brought forward as the risk factor here. In a transition from one system to another, there is always risk. It is a question of finding out what the balance is. There is substantial time and still opportunity to do that.

A big push should be made between now and the end of the year for publicity and action at local level. I also believe that the opportunity will still exist after 1 December for people to register. They should do what we did and target groups—it works. We have the proof, in that we got young people on to the register at a very high level. Target the schools, universities and community centres, particularly those in urban areas, because we all accept that the same profile of individual tends to be off the register in most places.

There is also another category of person: those who do not wish to be on the register. That can be for a variety of reasons: they could be “doing the double”, avoiding moneylenders or all sorts of things. People deliberately take themselves off the register. In my view, there is no way that we are going to deal with that, unless we change the law dramatically.

On balance, the risk here is that there are grossly inaccurate registers in certain places. There is no point in persisting and saying, “Well, we’ll keep it going for longer and longer”, because that will not fix anything. If you identify a problem in a particular area, you go and target the area. The local councils know where these areas are. We know where the schools are and where the universities are. Target those places instead of this blunderbuss approach where you just carry on and hope that, over time, it will get it more accurate. It will not.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

The noble Lord tells us a story of the wonderful things that have happened in Northern Ireland and the way in which many of these problems have been tackled, but given the present state of local government resources and the view taken of some of these things in England and Wales, does he think that there is a chance at all that in the next six months they will happen here?

[Lord Empey]

That is a perfectly reasonable and sensible point. I absolutely agree that it does need resources. I understand that there have been some additional funds—my noble friend Lord Lexden mentioned one example, and a further £3 million has been put in—and I would be entirely supportive if the Government felt the need to put more money into local authorities. I do not know what applications there have been from local authorities. Perhaps the Minister can tell the House what responses he has had. As I understand it, although the aid is targeted at certain boroughs, it is open to others to apply. Perhaps the Minister can give the House an assurance that, should the applications outreach the supply, the Government will look at that. That is a very sensible suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. All I am saying, from our experience, is that by bringing it to a conclusion you force people to do something. If you combine it with the special measures that I have outlined, together perhaps even with additional resource, we will end up in six months’ time with a very effective register.

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[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I find it a little difficult to be lectured on political rectitude by the noble Lord on the Liberal Democrat Benches. He has, of course, fought many elections, and so have I. I canvassed in every one since 1959. He is not the only one who understands what is implied. Until a few months ago, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was, my noble friend. I was flattered by the quotation which he gave the House and I would not withdraw a single word. At that stage, I was speaking as the Conservative Front Bench spokesman on constitutional affairs in the other place and of course I welcomed the establishment of the Electoral Commission. However, as my noble friend Lord Empey said in a powerful speech, the commission is there to advise. We are not always obliged to take the advice. The commission would be better employed, not just in the next five weeks, but in the months afterwards—because it is possible to register within a very short period—in exhorting and encouraging young people and those of all ages to ensure that they are registered. I am sure that the Minister will give us the appropriate facts and figures, but many reminders have already been delivered to those who have not registered. It is important that we have confidence in the integrity of the electoral register.

I am one of those who has favoured compulsory registration. I have raised this point in the House on many occasions with considerable support from the Benches opposite and, indeed, from many of my noble friends. I would still like to see that. I also agreed emphatically with the noble Lord—

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack]

Just a moment. I also agreed emphatically with my noble friend Lord Empey when he agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Wills—who made an extremely persuasive and very fine speech—that proof of identity at the polling station is something we could all reasonably demand.

[Lord Greaves]

I am grateful to the noble Lord and I agree with his last remarks. However, is not registering to vote a legal responsibility and duty, and the problem that, when people do not register, nobody takes any action against those who refuse to do so?

[Lord Cormack]

Of course, that is entirely true and it is a point I have made in both this House and in another place. I would like to see us get tougher on that. But the fact of the matter is—

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[Lord Cormack]

I will not give way at the moment. I wish to complete what I am saying. What I say to him, very quietly and in a spirit of collegiality, is that they must be a little careful how they use their votes because if they were proportionately represented in this House following the last general election, there would at the most generous estimate be 60 of them and more likely 50. I think 83, 84 and 81 voted in Divisions last night. Had they led by example, practised a self-denying ordinance and put only 55 into the Lobby—that being the difference between 60 and 50—the last Division would have gone in favour of the Government. The previous one would have been very finely balanced. I say to them, please be careful how you overuse the power you have accidently got when you are speaking in the House where you have 104 more Members than in the elected House. That is something everyone in this House should take into account. When we come to address—

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack]

I just want to complete this. When we come to address the size of the House, which I believe we will do shortly, we will have to bear in mind the numbers of those represented in another place, the number of votes garnered by the parties represented in another place and always preserve that distinguishing feature of this House: the 20% or thereabouts of Cross-Benchers. We should bear in mind that this House should never have an overall majority for any Government, whatever its political complexion. We should address the issue not only of underrepresentation but of overrepresentation. The debate we are having today—

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack]

I will give way in a second to the noble and impatient Lord. He has already had one go—

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[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I have been trying to get in for some time—

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me. A lot has been said this afternoon. It has been an excellent debate, and there have been very good contributions from all sides, although I profoundly disagree with some of what has been said, as I will come on to. It is always nice to be reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, that I have not read my Aristotle. He firmly puts me in my place.

I shall start by taking a step back to make two fundamental points, on which I hope we can all agree. First, we all agree that we want more people to engage in the democratic process and register to vote, but those who are not on the register today will clearly not be affected by the measure we are discussing, which is the removal of ghost entries. Secondly, as my noble friend Lord Lexden said in his excellent speech, nobody will lose their right to vote as a result of the government proposals that we are debating today.

Instead, the core of what we are debating comes down to the accuracy of the new electoral register. Do we keep on the new register ghost entries—entries of people who may have moved house or died or may never have existed in the first place? Are these ghost entries living, breathing voters, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, calls them, or hundreds of thousands of database errors which need to be removed ahead of the important elections next year? As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, rightly pointed out—let us not disguise this fact—for the sake of completeness, the Electoral Commission wants to keep those entries on the register, even if this means that the accuracy of the register is undermined. It judges the risk of fraud to be acceptable, and the Government disagree.

First, we believe that after 18 months of transition and more than a decade of waiting, as we enter a year of elections and possibly a referendum on Europe—possibly—the time has come to move fully to the new system. Secondly, we see the risk of fraud as unacceptable. Thirdly, we believe that people have been given ample opportunity to register on the new system. That said, fourthly, we entirely agree with those who want more people to register to vote and participate in the elections, but we do not make the register more complete by stuffing it with inaccurate registrations.

I shall take those points in turn. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, we have been waiting for the full transition to individual electoral registration for more than a decade. As the current chair of the Electoral Commission said:

“This change is something we’ve been calling for since 2003 and is an important step towards a more modern and secure electoral system”.

To give the former Labour Government their due, they legislated to introduce individual electoral registration in 2009. The coalition Government further legislated in 2013 and, finally, in the summer of 2014, the new system was introduced. I remind your Lordships that at the general election, in its manifesto, the Conservative Party committed that:

“Building on our introduction of individual voter registration, we will continue to make our arrangements fair and effective by ensuring the Electoral Commission puts greater priority on tackling fraud”.

This Government believe that it is time to finish the process, and finish it now. This decision is not, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, rash.

Let us consider the progress that has been made. Back in May, 96% of the electorate was successfully registered under the new system. It is the remaining 4%—the so-called “carry forwards”—that the Government believe should be removed from the register at the end of December. It is not the entire register that we are questioning, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, seems to suggest; it is the 4%. Then we have to ask ourselves: what do these entries represent; who are they; do they exist? The reality is that neither we nor the Electoral Commission know who they are. They may be people who have moved or have died, or they may never have existed in the first place. However, we have gone the extra mile to find out whether these entries actually are people living at the registered address. Electoral registration officers have been working tirelessly to confirm whether the remaining entries are real people or whether they are merely ghosts.

These people will have first been sent three invitations to register. If they had not done so by last autumn, an electoral registration officer would have visited the address linked to the entry. If this failed to elicit a response, a further letter would have gone to the address earlier this year. Where carry-forward still exists, these addresses will receive three further letters and another visit from an electoral registration officer this autumn. That is the second fact that I would ask noble Lords to remember. These people, if they are people, will have been contacted at least nine times by December. I ask noble Lords to compare that with the number of times people are contacted about renewing their TV licence—four times. These people, if these entries do indeed represent people, have been contacted nine times. On top of this, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, the Government made available to councils up to £3 million of additional funding to support extra efforts targeted specifically at carry-forward entries, and £1.2 million of that was drawn down.

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[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, I completely agree that we need to get more people on the register. However, let us not confuse apples and oranges—these are two separate things. If people are not on the register, there is absolutely no way they can be taken off the register, which is what we are saying today. I do not understand—maybe I am not explaining it clearly enough. However, I will go on, if I may.

When people move, we should not leave their entries on the register. That increases the risk of not only electoral fraud but benefit and financial fraud. In advance of Northern Ireland moving to a system of individual electoral registration in 2002, the police said that it would,

“go a long way to eliminating the opportunities for fraudsters to commit the offence of personation”.

The noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, asked about fraud. Let us just remind ourselves that since 2002-03, courts have imposed jail sentences for electoral fraud in Ashford, Blackburn, Bradford, Bristol, Burnley, Coventry, Derby, Guildford, Oldham, Peterborough, Slough and Walsall.

[Lord Greaves]

Will the Minister agree that in I think all those cases, but certainly in almost all of them, the fraud was linked to postal vote and proxy vote fraud, not registration fraud?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, it is electoral fraud; we are trying to make sure here that—