Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England) (Amendment) Order 2017

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord Hayward

Thursday 30th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, before I comment specifically on the statutory instruments before the House, I will raise one or two questions relating to the general principle of ensuring that our electoral rolls are as accurate and complete as possible. I see the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Rennard, in their seats. I think the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, in particular is likely to touch on the subject if he speaks soon after me. I am concerned, as I think we all have been concerned and successive Governments have been concerned, about the fact that the register is accurate for certain groups—the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, touched on that in part in his brief comments—but large groups of the population are regularly missed in one form or another.

I mentioned this to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in advance, but I did not have a chance to mention it to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. Yesterday during Questions a Question came up relating to the 18 pilot projects identified around the country as a result of what one might describe as the Pickles review. I have been informed—I have not had the chance to check it, but I believe it to be correct—that in the case of both Burnley and Pendle the Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors on those councils have voted against participating in the schemes, despite the fact that in each case they are among the 18 authorities identified for review. I will say only this: I regret it enormously if that is the case, because being innovative and trying to find ways to deal with fraud and underregistration are key to the processes of our elections, whether they be local or national.

Specifically on the statutory instruments, I broadly welcome them for the same reason that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, identified. We should be innovative. Society is changing quite markedly. It is much more mobile than it was when the original legislation was introduced. We have very different forms of campaigning nowadays from those we had when I was somewhat younger. Therefore, we have to find ways of getting hold of potential voters in whichever way we can. I shall comment also on the Minister’s opening remarks, which concentrated rather too much for my comfort on savings. We were not given indications relating to the accuracy of the trials that have taken place so far. The Electoral Commission and other interested parties are conscious of not only the potential savings but the potential accuracy and gain achieved by any particular process within this trial.

I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Young, in his opening comments said that the results had been fairly positive from 2016. I recognise that it is a small step forward with a limited number of trials in local authorities. That is a good basis from which to work. Given where we are in the electoral cycle, and given that there are discussions with the local authorities that he identified, I shall ask for clarification just for confirmation that these projects will not interfere in any way with the local elections that are taking place. I assume that most of the preparatory work will take place later in the calendar year, but I would like that confirmation because a fair number of the local authorities to which he referred have elections—either in Scotland or Wales or in the county council elections this year.

I must admit that I am surprised and disappointed that the locations that he identified were the ones chosen. I think I understood him correctly to say that they would provide a range of local authorities to test the system. The Minister referred to model 1. Looking at the order to identify the local authorities involved, two of the authorities in model 1 are Welsh: Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen, which demographically are very similar. As far as I could see, there was no marked variation between those two local authorities: they are essentially valley mining communities. They touch on my other keen interest, rugby, in that they have produced many of the great Welsh rugby players and the great Welsh rugby teams—but they are very similar. If one was looking for Welsh authorities, I would have thought that one would not go for two Welsh valley authorities.

Equally, on the same list we have the authorities of South Holland, South Norfolk and Ryedale—which, again, are very similar in general make-up. We do not have one London borough in that group, but we have two metropolitan authorities. One could reasonably argue that the metropolitan authorities balance for a London authority, but it would have been better, rather than having two metropolitan authorities, Newcastle and Wakefield, if we had looked for slightly different mets across the country.

The second group, the email group, has a balanced combination of authorities: Bath, Coventry, the Derbyshire Dales, Hounslow—the first local authority in London—and Woking. The third category, described as the discernment model, has one London authority: Camden. I am sure that Camden will produce stellar results in its review. I declare a personal interest here: my niece is the Labour leader of that council, so I am sure that it will do its job very effectively indeed. Alongside that authority we have Salford, Sunderland and Birmingham—again, a combination of three mets, which I do not think shows a reasonable balance. That is combined with South Lakeland. There are no unitary authorities from any part of the country. That is not a particularly balanced grouping.

I have the same observation relating to the fourth grouping, the telephone model, where four local authorities are identified in England: East Devon, Luton, South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse. Three of those are district councils; most people would regard them as rural and fairly wealthy; and we have the rather odd position where South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse—I again declare an interest as, being Lord Hayward, of Cumnor, I originate from one of those local authorities—are neighbouring authorities in Oxfordshire. You will not get much variation of information by picking that as a group. Therefore, if it is possible at this stage, I ask whether some of those local authorities could be switched round. It may be too late, but I make those observations on the different groupings.

I shall ask one final question relating to the use of telephones. More and more people do not have a landline. They operate totally on mobiles. It was not clear from the Minister’s opening comments whether the tests would include solely landlines or a combination of landlines and mobiles, or whether the authorities have access in one form or another to mobile numbers—I would be surprised if they do not in most cases. Those should be used, in the right circumstances and with the right qualifications—the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, referred to data protection—because that will help the process.

I have made a few overall comments. I hope I have raised specific questions that can be dealt with either today or at a later stage in a written reply. But, overall, I broadly welcome the process as long as the objective is to achieve greater rates of registration, as well as the saving to local authorities in the process.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, the sentiments expressed in the Minister’s very thorough brief about modernisation, efficiency and cost saving are very worthy and have my support. But we should consider the issues very carefully because none of the sentiments outweigh the overarching principle of the requirement in a democracy to make sure that every citizen entitled to vote is enabled to do so by being on the electoral register.

During the passage of the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, I was among those who fought to preserve the principle of the annual canvass, and we ensured then that it was retained. After much deliberation, the canvass was seen—as the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, has just said—as an essential part of ensuring both the completeness and the accuracy of the electoral register. But the principle was hotly contested during those debates. Certainly, there were some within the Government who simply argued that it should go as a cost-saving measure; while others of us argued that ensuring that people entitled to vote were registered to do so was part of the cost of democracy and essential to the principle of fair elections. We come now, four years later, to look again at the issue of the annual canvass and how it can best be operated.

People like me have accepted that there might be better and more cost-effective ways of canvassing to complete the register and ensure its accuracy. Those of us—and there are many of us in the House—with long experience of canvassing in elections know a lot, I suspect, about targeting canvass efforts. In some areas it may be worth knocking on doors several times, while in others it may perhaps be impractical to call upon households personally. During the discussions four years ago one Minister told me that he thought the annual canvass was now completely redundant. He had been taken out by his advisers to a gated community and shown how it was almost impossible to gain access to canvass. It was suggested to him that the principle of the annual canvass should therefore be dropped. But such gated communities represent less than 1% of all households in the UK. The vast majority of households are accessible, and canvassing them is often an essential part of the process of completing the electoral register.

What I think can be done, however, is to use more modern methods to try and register as many people as possible in advance of attempting to call personally on doorsteps. Concentrating canvassing efforts on particular households where there is a need to make personal contact, and perhaps on low-registration areas where, for example, there may be many homes in multiple occupation, may be a higher priority—but all of this is predicated on making every effort to get people registered in ways that do not require a personal visit. If we are to extend this principle and vary the methodology involved in the annual canvass, I would like to ask the Minister about a couple of issues relevant to registering more people in advance of the doorstep call.

First, as we have discussed in correspondence, there is the provision of national insurance numbers to 16 and 17 year-olds. The Minister has told me that Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs is willing, in principle, to supply to young people with their national insurance number information about how it can be used to register to vote. That clearly will save money and reduce the number of people who need to be called on personally. Since then, the Electoral Commission has said that there should be an automatic process of registration, so that when HMRC issues a national insurance number to a 16 or 17 year-old they are automatically included on the electoral register. That must fulfil the cost-saving principle that the Minister outlined in detail and would be a much better way of ensuring that 16 and 17 year-olds are included on the register. At that age they are already able to vote in Scottish Parliament elections, and it will ensure that they are on the register by the time they are 18 and can vote in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Secondly, I come again to the issue of student registration. It is particularly hard under the old-fashioned household canvass rules to canvass students in halls of residence and put them on the electoral register. The Explanatory Memorandum for the statutory instruments states:

“The purposes of these pilots are to gather evidence to establish whether alternative methods can be used to conduct the canvass that are just as efficient and more cost effective”.


We know that the traditional annual canvass method is not appropriate for students and we already know from pilots—which the Cabinet Office itself has referred to—that it is far cheaper and much more effective to offer students the opportunity to go on to the electoral register at the same time as they enrol for their course.

We know, for example from the Sheffield pilot that we debated, that students can be registered at a cost—according to Sheffield Council—of approximately 14p per student, compared to £5 per student using the traditional methodology which includes the annual canvass. In terms of completeness, which is a stated aim of government policy, the Sheffield model is registering students at a rate of about 76%, compared to institutions of a similar size registering students at a rate of only around 13%. The models may need to vary for different higher education students, but, if we are to change the principles of the annual canvass, we need to use all these methods to make sure that underregistered groups are more effectively represented on the electoral register.