Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between Lord Tyler and Lord Baker of Dorking

Monday 29th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, we have just heard from two very distinguished senior members of former Administrations. I find their cynicism about the way in which the public service operates rather discouraging. I am not suggesting that every word of our amendments may be precise, but I want to put it absolutely clearly on the table: nobody is forcing anybody to do anything. The purpose of the exercise is to make sure that the process of compiling the very building block, the foundation stone, of our democracy—the electoral register, which is important, as the noble Baroness said earlier, not just for voting purposes but for jury service and other purposes—is as well informed as it can be from public sources. As my noble friend said, the amendment does not propose that the electoral registration process should give back information in the opposite direction; it is one way. It has been very clear from successive Administrations and Ministers that it is for that purpose alone and not to provide information in the opposite direction.

I ask my noble friend Lord Baker to read very carefully how our amendment is worded. It does not suggest that the information could be given to any other person; it says very specifically,

“to disclose information to another person for the purpose of assisting a registration officer in Great Britain”.

In other words, it has to be for that purpose and that purpose alone. It may be that the wording can be tightened up still further by government amendment between now and Report, but I make it absolutely clear to my noble friend that not any other person could benefit from this data mining.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

Would “another person” be an election agent of a party, or someone purporting to be?

[Lord Tyler]

No.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

With great respect, that is what the amendment says. It does not say a registration officer or a local authority employee; it says “another person”. “Another person” in English law means anybody who says, “I’m actually going to seek this information in order to register more students. That is what I’m doing it for. I’m doing it for a public purpose. The fact that I am an election agent for my party, forget it. Forget that I am a registered Liberal”—that may be too difficult to forget, but—“Forget whatever I am”. That is what the amendment says.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, if the Government feel that the amendment is inadequate in that respect, and my noble friend has made his point eloquently, obviously they can adjust the wording at a later stage. However, the amendment is here for the very specific purpose of assisting a registration officer in Great Britain. In other words, I would take that to be somebody who was within their organisation. If my noble friend has better wording, that is fine, but the point that I have to make is simply this: we already have the precedent, which has existed for a very considerable time, of using data that are already available to Government for this purpose. We are seeking to make sure that that is as full as possible. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Reid, will understand that the great majority of DWP data, cited by my noble friend Lord Rennard, will relate to people who are already going to register, in particular elderly people. What we are concerned about is mobile young people, a concern which has been evident also in contributions from the opposition Front Bench today. One of the ways to get to them is clearly through the student loan data and those who register for provisional licences.