Electoral Status: Online Access

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I am sure that we will continue to discuss and debate this matter, but the Government believe that active engagement on registering to vote is preferable. The success of the new individual electoral registration system shows that it is making it easier to register to vote. Between the unfortunate downtime at 10 pm last Tuesday and the close of the registration period on Thursday night, for example, there were more than 453,000 applications.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, it is of course welcome that substantially increased numbers of people have registered to vote in recent weeks, but does that not have clear implications for the work of the parliamentary Boundary Commission? It is due to report in September but is now likely to report on the basis of substantially out-of-date electoral registration figures. If the Government can bring in emergency legislation to extend the period during which people can register, surely they must commit themselves—I ask the Minister to do this—to ensuring that any redrawing of constituency boundaries by the Boundary Commission is based on a totally up-to-date electoral register.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I am sorry to disappoint your Lordships, but I am not going to commit the Government to that. Without the implementation of these boundary reforms, MPs would, by 2020, end up representing constituencies that are drawn up on data that are over 15 years old for all of the UK.