Registers of Births and Deaths Bill

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I must apologise to the House, because I have not been a regular attender on Friday sittings in recent years. The last occasion on which I brought a private Member’s Bill to the House was in March 1991, when I promoted the Education (Publication of Examination Results) Bill, which proposed to set up league tables. It failed to win the support of the House, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) may recall, it subsequently became Government policy. In those days, the doyennes of Friday sittings were Ian Gow, Nicholas Soames and Michael Brown. I see that I attended on 20 April 1990 and spent 45 minutes speaking about the relative merits of low-volume alcohol drinks being defined as no more than 0.65% alcohol or 1.2%. Both you and I, Mr Deputy Speaker, will understand why a speech of such length was required.

My purpose today is much more serious, and I wish to start by thanking the Minister for his support and interest in this Bill. I know that he will have spent much of last night swatting up on all the details, a process I will remember from my time as a junior social security Minister in the 1990s. The good news for him is that once he reaches the Cabinet, which will not be long, he will not have to take Bills through the House any more—he will have a junior Minister to do it for him. I wish to thank his officials, particularly Linda Edwards and Saskia Molekamp, who have been extremely helpful in drafting and addressing the issues in this Bill.

My championing of this measure will come as no surprise whatsoever to my constituents in the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, whom I have the great honour of representing in this place, because our register office was closed by Birmingham City Council in 2014. It took that measure to save £83,000 of expenditure, which included the lease of a desk in the local library, so much of that expenditure was not actually saved. At the time, the failure to tell the local Good Hope Hospital, funeral directors and local GPs caused a considerable fuss. The central Birmingham register office was very overstretched at the time and people had to struggle to get an appointment to register a birth or a death, and it was not well placed for access in terms of parking. So for my constituents the removal of the register office constituted a considerable inconvenience, as a result of which there was a lot of campaigning across the town for it to remain open. I commend the Conservative councillors on Birmingham City Council, who, under their outstanding leader, Bobby Alden, have each year since then, in an alternative budget, pledged to reopen it and make better use of district centres to reduce travel and boost high-street activity.

Alas, that campaign at the time, which I, as the Member of Parliament, the hard-working councillors in Sutton Coldfield and local residents strongly supported, did not prevail. The failure of local government to hear the call from the royal town to stop this closure is one reason why people voted for local democracy; they voted, in a referendum, to set up the Royal Sutton Coldfield Town Council, which is today one of the largest, if not the largest, town councils in the country, under its outstanding leader, Simon Ward. I reiterate, because it is so relevant to the Bill, that the reason for the campaign from the royal town was that at an often upsetting and sad time in life my constituents had to journey all the way into Birmingham to comply with the necessary registration procedures.

The purpose of the Bill is to reform the way in which births and deaths are registered in England and Wales, moving from a paper-based system to registration in an electronic register. Registrars already use an electronic system to register births and deaths, and have done so since 2009, but they are still required to keep paper registers securely, in a safe, due to the requirements of the current and, I submit, outdated legislation. The Bill will remove the duplication of processes.

I reassure my hon. Friends that my Bill does not make any fundamental changes to the current arrangements for registering births and deaths—for example, who is able to provide the information to the registrar or the information to be recorded in the entry—but it will make a big difference, as I have described, for our constituents. The way in which births and deaths are currently registered dates back to 1837. It is much in need of modernisation and a move to digital methods of registration.

I hope that it may be helpful to the House if I explain how the current system works. All births and deaths that occur in England and Wales are required to be registered by the registrar for the sub-district in which the event occurred by a qualified informant. For example, in the case of a birth, the qualified informant is usually the child’s mother. When registering a birth or death, the registrar will record all the information on an electronic system. Once the registration is complete, the system will generate a paper register page, which is signed by the informant and the registrar. That paper record is then put into a loose-leaf register, which the registrar keeps in a safe. It is that paper record that is the formal record of the event, from which all certificates are then issued.

The changes proposed in my Bill would remove the requirement for paper birth and death registers and introduce a single electronic register in which all births and deaths would be registered. This will create a much more efficient and secure system of registration. The electronic system is already there and is used on a daily basis.

[Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Mitchell]

I give way with great pleasure to my hon. Friend, who, as a distinguished resident of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, may well recall the events of which I have spoken.

[Suzanne Webb]

I do indeed, and troublesome they were at the time. Under my right hon. Friend’s Bill, will the old birth and death certificates be destroyed, or will they be archived?

[Mr Mitchell]

That is a most important point. I will come to it, but clause 4 refers to the very point that my hon. Friend so wisely makes.

Currently, registrars submit copies of all the birth and death entries they have registered in the last quarter to their superintendent registrar via a system of quarterly returns. The superintendent registrar certifies those entities as being true copies of birth and death entries in the registers and forwards them to the Registrar General. That is done electronically using the electronic system. The Registrar General holds a central repository of all births and deaths registered in England and Wales. My Bill will remove that administrative burden.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

When the electronic system was introduced in 2009, why did the Government decide not to abandon the hard copy record? Surely the reason was that it was a safeguard. Hard copies are an essential safeguard, are they not?

[Mr Mitchell]

I will come on to a number of points that my hon. Friend alludes to, but I think he will be satisfied, when he hears about the other provisions of my Bill, that that point is properly addressed.

With the move to an electronic register, the system of quarterly returns will no longer be necessary. Following the registration of a birth or death in the electronic register, the entry will immediately be available to the superintendent registrar and the Registrar General, without the quarterly returns process having to be completed from the paper registers.

The Bill amends the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 to insert a new section that enables Ministers to make regulations that make provision that a duty to sign the birth or death register is to have the effect of a duty to comply with specified requirements. If an informant complies with those requirements, they are to be treated as having signed the register and to have done so in the presence of the registrar.

The entry in the electronic register will be treated as having been signed by the person who has provided the information relating to a birth or death. For example, the regulations may require a person to sign something other than the register or to provide evidence of their identity. I reassure my hon. Friends that the regulations would be made using the affirmative procedure, which requires them to be approved by both Houses of Parliament and therefore there would be the opportunity to discuss the content of those measures.

The provisions in my Bill are the first step in moving to a more modern system of birth and death registration. By removing the requirement for paper registers to be signed in the presence of a registrar, we would pave the way for a move to online methods of registration. That would provide more flexibility and allow an informant to provide the particulars of a birth or death online and at a time to suit the individual, without having to visit a register office. That would modernise how births and deaths are registered in the future and give the public more choice, but the choice to register in person would remain, as register offices and facilities are needed for marriages, civil ceremonies and citizenship.

As I am sure my hon. Friends will agree, removing the requirement for face-to-face services is particularly relevant and most important at the moment as we deal with the issues of covid-19 and the pandemic. My right hon. and hon. Friends will also be pleased to hear that just these measures in respect of the registration of deaths would save the taxpayer £90 million over 10 years. Over the next 10 years, we conservatively estimate that the effect of all these measures would save £170 million for the taxpayer. I should explain that the figure of £20 million that appears in the explanatory notes is a reference only to the amount saved by removing the paper register and the requirements for quarterly returns. The savings to the taxpayer would be significant indeed.

I turn briefly to the clauses in the Bill. Clause 1 amends the original Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953. The new sections allow the Registrar General to determine how registers of live births, stillbirths and deaths are to be kept. It would remove the duplication of processes: all births and deaths would be registered in an electronic register without the need for paper registers.

Clause 2 deals with the provision of equipment and facilities by local authorities. It makes clear that all local authorities must provide and maintain the equipment and facilities set down by the Registrar General for all register and sub-district register offices. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) for specifically raising that point in our discussions earlier.

Clause 3 is the requirement to sign the register. This is a new power that would bring before the House new regulations in respect of non-paper registration. Where someone complies with specific requirements, they will be treated as having signed. Obviously, such provisions may require evidence of identity, and those provisions would be put to the House in further legislation that we would move in the way that I have described. The clause makes it clear that the Government can do so only under the affirmative procedure, which means that any provisions must be laid before and approved by both Houses of Parliament.

Clause 4 is the about the treatment of existing registers and records—the point made so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb). It requires the Registrar General to continue to keep and maintain all the existing records.

Clause 5 effectively brings the schedules to the Bill into effect. Clause 6 is a power to make further consequential provisions, including, if required, to primary legislation. Again, in those circumstances that can be done only by affirmative resolution. Clause 7 is the commencement clause, which comes into force on the day the Bill is passed. Finally, the schedule deals with minor and consequential amendments to the original 1953 Act and certain other primary legislation consequent on the provisions of this Bill.

The Bill requires neither a money resolution, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will be pleased to hear, nor a Ways and Means resolution. It is also fully compatible with the European convention on human rights. I very much hope that the Bill will progress through the House and, indeed, the other place, where our late colleague my noble Friend Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton has agreed to assist in its passage, and that, with its self-evident benefits for our constituents, it will, after further scrutiny, become an Act. I commend its provisions to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I am not sure that we wanted our parents to give us really popular Christian names, but I note that my parents had the foresight to give me the same Christian name as my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), so that was obviously a good thing. We are 152nd in the league table. I predict that it will not be long before we are about 1,000th in the league table because obviously Christopher is a name that has Christ in it, and I fear that the Christian emphasis in our society is on the decline, rather than on the increase, but that is by the bye.

The Bill of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) is one about which I have considerable concerns. The hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) identified two concerns: the risk of identity fraud associated with the registration of births, and the problems that there already are in the reliability of the registration online system. We have a registration system at the moment and there is a back-up, which is the hard copies. What this Bill is going to do is to deprive us of that back-up.

I am sure there are hon. Friends who run their constituency offices on the basis that it is all purely electronic, but I certainly do not, and I have good reason not to do that because on so many occasions the electronic systems fail and we need to rely on the hard copy back-up. If that was not just a general proposition, it was brought home to me last evening because I was talking to my wife and she showed me an email that she has had from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency saying that her driving licence details need to be updated. She looked at the email and saw that the details registered were not correct. She tried to change the details but could not. Suffice it to say that, in those details, there are names of foreign people and suggestions that my wife’s driving licence record has now been tampered with and been the subject perhaps of fraud or forgery.

I cite that as a topical example of what happens if we become wholly reliant upon electronic systems. I think most of us will have safes at home where we keep our birth certificates for ourselves and our children, our marriage certificates, our passports, our driving licences, exam certificates, degree certificates and so on. The reason we do that is that we have the security of having a hard copy, instead of having to faff around trying to get duplicate copies. How can we be sure that the back-up system, which will now become the main system under my right hon. Friend’s Bill, will be 100% reliable and proof against fraud?

My right hon. Friend identifies savings, and obviously any savings that come from efficiency are good. In terms of the need to pass these records on up through the lines, from the area manager to the regional manager and then to the top dog, I think that is a very sensible reform, but dispensing totally with the written record will save only £20 million over 10 years. The other savings to which he referred are from the other streamlining processes set out in his Bill. I have no problem with those, but I question whether, for £2 million a year, it is worth taking the risk both in terms of opening up fraud and damaging the potential for future generations to be able to examine this period of our history, which is much easier to do with hard-copy, written records than it is with electronic data.

[Mr Mitchell]

I believe that in Committee we will be able to satisfy my hon. Friend absolutely on the issue of fraud and on the other points as well. I hope that he will perhaps consider serving on the Bill Committee, where I am completely confident we will be able to satisfy him on all his concerns.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his confidence. I approach this sort of legislation in a constructive frame of mind. One point occurred to me when he referred to draft regulations. In due course, we will all be able to see these draft regulations. Although they would be affirmative resolution regulations, we know that we would not be able to amend them. I ask my right hon. Friend: would it be possible, by the time that the Bill reaches Committee, as I expect it to, for us to have a draft of those regulations so that we can look at them in Committee alongside his Bill? That practice has often been supported by Ministers, and I think that he would support it as well.

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I think that would be a very good thing to do. Of course, it would have to be the proposed orders, which will be subject to the affirmative resolution, as we have both agreed, that are already on the stocks, and there will be more in the future, not least to address any dangers—he mentioned the issue of fraud—that are not relevant or understood today but which could emerge in future.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that assurance. We are talking about fraud and forgery. We know from our own constituency records that it is rife. Action Fraud is incapable of dealing with all the fraud cases that come before it. Most of our local police forces are incapable and under-resourced to deal with the fraud, which is rife. It never used to be part and parcel of British society that you assumed that people were fraudulent until proved otherwise, but we have almost got to that stage now. Elderly people are receiving phone calls and most of them seem to be to try to con the individual out of some money. There is every incentive for fraud where we are talking about birth certificates and certificates of registration, which give us our identity. What could be more fundamental than that? I look forward to seeing these assurances in Committee, but it would be helpful and desirable that we should be able to give them a line by line examination, rather than just rely on expressions of good intention.

I go back to the point that I made in an intervention on my right hon. Friend’s speech. When the legislation was changed in 2009 to allow electronic records to be kept, safeguards were in place. Who could object to the establishment of electronic records if we were going to retain the hard copy written records? Now, just over 10 years later, we see that that safeguard, which was fundamental to the change then, is being removed and without, it seems, any justification. I hope that, in due course, my right hon. Friend will be able to explain what has happened in the last 10 or 11 years that has removed the necessity for the safeguards which this House thought were absolutely essential back in 2009.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mitchell]

I am most grateful to the House for its support of this modest but important measure, particularly to the two Front Benchers for giving such fulsome support. I believe it updates and modernises an important Government service. It extends choice and convenience for our constituents. It saves a great deal of public money—I emphasise that £170 million over 10 years is a very conservative figure—and it starts to put right a wrong inflicted on the good people of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

Registers of Births and Deaths Bill (First sitting)

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clauses 2 to 7 stand part.

That the schedule be the schedule to the Bill.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

May I first say, on behalf of the whole Committee, what a pleasure it is to serve under your benign chairmanship, Ms McVey, and welcome you to the Chair? May I also express my admiration and gratitude to hon. Members from all parts of the House who have physically made the journey to the Committee today? Under the rules of the House, we all have to be here physically to conduct the Committee stage, and I am immensely grateful to all those who have made the journey, whose names will be recorded in Hansard.

I also thank colleagues from both sides of the House for their co-operation in working on the Bill and, in particular, the Opposition for their support. That includes the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), who unfortunately cannot be with us today, but who led for the Opposition on Second Reading.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), cannot be here today either, for reasons that the Committee will readily understand and accept, but in his absence we are joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Corby, who is double-hatting—of course, a Government Whip is also a Minister. We are extremely grateful to him for, at short notice, taking on this speaking part, which is somewhat unusual for the Government Whips Office or, indeed, any Whips Office. I believe I am right in saying that, before he was a Government Whip, he was a very distinguished vice-chairman of the youth wing of our party. That was my first parliamentary job when I first came into the House at, I think, about the time when my hon. Friend was born, so we are very grateful indeed to him for being here today and helping to take this Bill through Committee.

This is a very difficult time. I therefore hope that you will allow me, Ms McVey, to express a couple of thanks to those who put together the arrangements for this morning so that the Committee could take place: from the Clerks Department, Adam Mellows-Facer, and Yohanna Sallberg from the Committee of Selection; Linda Edwards and Saskia Molekamp from the Home Office; and of course Jonathan Carter, who drafted the Bill and whom I should have mentioned on Second Reading. I am also very grateful that our former colleague Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton has generously agreed to take the Bill through the House of peers, should it get assent in this House.

The Second Reading debate made clear—at least I hope it did—that the Bill was conceived in the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, my constituency, where the registry office was closed back in 2014. As a result of that, many of my constituents, at a difficult time in their lives, had to make the long journey from Sutton Coldfield into Birmingham to register a birth or a death. A day like today, the day after we have all had to come to terms with the terrible news about the scale of covid deaths in our country, brings it home to us that at a difficult time, of great sadness often, having to go physically into a registry office to register a death or, indeed, a birth is a hardship. Of course, as a result of the Bill, that will all be able to be done online. In addition, of course, as I made clear on Second Reading, the Bill will save the taxpayer—the Treasury—some £200 million over 10 years, which is an important point to bear in mind.

While the Bill was conceived in the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, it was definitely born in the Home Office, which strongly supports it. Indeed, the Home Office has been enormously helpful and, as I say, I pay particular tribute to Linda Edwards for the time and effort that she has taken, both in briefing me and ensuring that we get the terms of these seven clauses and the schedule right today.

I will now address the clauses and the schedule in granular detail. As I am sure members of the Committee will understand, we are changing the law of the land, and therefore it is most important that we set down what is intended in this very technical area. Therefore, I hope that I will be relatively brief but also extremely clear.

Currently, under the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, the Registrar General for England and Wales provides the local registration service with paper birth and death registers, and paper forms for making certified copies of the register entries, which are more commonly known as birth and death certificates. The registers have been paper-based since 1837. Since 2009, registrars in England and Wales have also recorded the birth and death registration information electronically, in parallel with the paper-based system, due to the existing outdated legislation requiring the paper-based system, which is a duplication of effort for registrars.

Clause 1(2) amends the 1953 Act and substitutes section 25 with a new section 25. The new section allows the Registrar General to determine how registers of live births, stillbirths and deaths are to be kept, and contains additional provision that is appropriate for registers being in electronic form only. This will allow the duplication of processes to be removed, by allowing the Registrar General to remove the requirement for paper registers and to move to electronic birth and death registers. Subsection (2) allows the Registrar General to require that registrars keep information in a form that will allow the Registrar General and the superintendent registrar to have immediate access to all birth and death entries as soon as the registrar has entered the details in the electronic register.

In the case of stillbirths, subsection (2)(b) of proposed new section 25 allows only the registrar to have immediate access to the entries in the register. Currently, the superintendent registrar and Registrar General would have access to the birth and death entries only upon receipt of the quarterly returns.

Subsection (3) of proposed new section 25 provides that

“where a register is kept in such form”,

for example in electronic form, any information in that register made available to the Registrar General and superintendent registrar is deemed to be

“held by that person (as well as by the registrar)”

when carrying out that person’s functions—in other words, for the issuing of certified copies and for data-sharing powers. Subsection (4) provides that is required for the purpose of creating and maintaining the birth and death registers, for example providing registrars with the electronic system, is the responsibility of the Registrar General. Subsection (5) also places a responsibility on the Registrar General to provide the required forms to produce certified copies of entries, for example birth and death certificates.

Sections 26 and 27 of the 1953 Act set out the requirements for quarterly returns. Currently, copies of all the entries of live births, stillbirths and deaths made in the paper registers are transmitted by the registrar to the superintendent registrar. The superintendent registrar is required to certify the entries as a true copy and deliver them to the Registrar General on a quarterly basis. The process of quarterly returns is completed electronically. The Registrar General holds a central repository of all births and deaths that have been registered in England and Wales, from which certificates can be issued.

Clause 1(3)(a) and (b) omit sections 26 and 27 of the Act, which set out the requirements for the quarterly returns made by a registrar and superintendent registrar, as they will no longer be needed, due to the entries for all births and deaths being held on a single electronic register, which will give the superintendent registrar and the Registrar General immediate access to the records, as provided for by subsection (2). Clause 1(3)(c) omits section 28 of the Act, which sets out how paper birth and death registers need to be stored by registrars, superintendent registrars and the Registrar General. With the introduction of an electronic register, this provision will no longer be required. The requirements for the retention and storage of existing paper registers are covered in clause 4, which I will cover later.

Clause 2 inserts a new section 11A into the 1953 Act. Subsections (1) and (2) set out how the council of every non-metropolitan county and metropolitan district, subject to the provisions of local scheme arrangements, must provide and maintain equipment or facilities that the Registrar General considers necessary for a superintendent registrar or registrar to carry out their functions—for example, the IT equipment needed to host the electronic register. It should be noted that this equipment is already in place in register offices, as births and deaths are currently registered electronically in parallel with the paper registers. This requirement applies across each register office or sub-district of a registrar.

Clause 3 makes provision for the signing by the informant of registers of births and deaths that are not kept in paper form, as we move towards digital methods of registering births and deaths, and the introduction of an electronic register. Currently, numerous sections of the Act require the paper registers of births and deaths to be signed by an informant, when attending to register a birth or death. The Act places a duty on the informant to provide the particulars required to be registered through a registrar and in the presence of the registrar to sign the register.

Clause 3(2) inserts a new section 38B in the Act, entitled “Requirements to sign register.” This section empowers the Minister to make regulations in relation to registers of births and deaths not kept in paper form. New section 38B(1)(a) provides that a duty to sign the paper birth or death register

“at any time is to have effect as a duty to comply with specified requirements”.

“Specified” means specified in regulations made under this section. New section 38B(1)(b) provides that a person who complies with these specified requirements

“is to be treated…as having signed the register…and…to have done so in the presence of the registrar”.

Under new section 38B(2)(a) and (b) provisions that may be made by regulations include

“requiring a person to sign something other than the register,”

and

“requiring a person to provide…evidence of identity”

to be specified in the regulations when attending to register a birth or death. New section 38B(3) clarifies that:

“In this section ‘specified’ means specified in regulations under this section.”

Clause 3(3) inserts a new subsection (6) in section 39A of the Act. Subsection (6) states that regulations made by the Minister under section 38B are subject to the affirmative procedure. The regulations may not be made unless they have been laid before and approved by both Houses of Parliament. I reassure hon. Members that this will ensure full parliamentary oversight of the content, as the Committee will understand.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

May I seek clarity about whether the right hon. Gentleman envisages that, under future regulations, people would be able to register online? Might that make the process more open to fraud than a requirement to attend in person?

[Mr Mitchell]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point. There is no doubt an overwhelming benefit for our constituents to be able to do this online, but there are provisions for checking and following up on fraud. I shall come to some of them during my remarks.

I have completed the detailed coverage of clause 3, so I turn to clause 4, which covers the treatment of the existing registers of births, stillbirths and deaths records. Currently, under section 28 of the Act, registrars are required to keep safely all registers of live births, stillbirths and deaths in their custody. When not in use, they must keep the registers securely in the register box provided by the Registrar General.

When a registrar fills the register of births or deaths, the registrar must deliver it to the superintendent registrar. The register is then kept in perpetuity, with the records of the office. It is from these paper registers that all certified copies, for example birth and death certificates, are issued. This will continue to be the case in the future. When a register of stillbirths is filled, the registrar delivers it to the superintendent registrar, who forwards it to the Registrar General to keep in the General Register Office, from which all requests for certified copies are issued.

The registrar provides the superintendent registrar with copies of all the birth and death registrations, known as quarterly returns. The superintendent registrar certifies them as true copies of the entries in the registers and forwards them to the Registrar General. These are kept at the General Register Office to create a national record of all births and deaths. These returns used to be paper-based and completed quarterly, but with the introduction of the electronic register in 2009, these returns are now done electronically within seven days. As we discussed earlier, sections 26, 27 and 28 are repealed by clause 1, as the process of quarterly returns and the custody of paper registers will no longer be required with the move to an electronic system.

Clause 4(1)(a) specifies that the repeal of section 28 of the Act does not affect the existing requirement under section 28(2) for every superintendent registrar to continue to keep any registers of live births or deaths in their custody with the records of the office immediately before the repeal comes into force.

Clause 4(1)(b) specifies that the repeal of section 28 of the Act does not affect the existing requirement under section 28(4) for the Registrar General to continue to keep any certified copies that he has received under section 27 in the possession of the Registrar General, and any registers of stillbirths forwarded to the Registrar General before the coming into force of the repeal.

Subsection (2) requires all registrars to send any unfilled paper registers of births and deaths in their possession to the superintendent registrar to be kept with the records of the office. In the case of stillbirths, subsection (3) of the clause requires all registrars to send any unfilled paper registers of stillbirths in their possession to the Registrar General, who will keep them at the General Register Office in such order and manner as he or she thinks fit.

Subsection (4) allows the Registrar General to dispose of any certified copies of stillbirth entries in any register of stillbirths, as the Registrar General will also hold the completed paper registers of stillbirths. Subsection (4) also allows the Registrar General to dispose of any paper stillbirth records that are held in electronic format by virtue of section 27 of the 1953 Act.

Since 1 July 2009, registrations of births and deaths have been held in both paper and electronic format. The Bill removes the requirement for birth and death entries to be held in paper format, removing the duplication in the process.

Subsection (5) specifies how copies of birth and death records that have been held in a format other than hard copy paper form, such as electronically, are to be treated on and after the day on which clause 1 of the Bill comes into force. Subsection (5)(a) provides that those copies of birth and death registers held in electronic form are to be treated as the register for the sub-district on and after the day that clause 1 of the Bill comes into force.

Subsection 5(b) provides that where a copy of a register of births or register of deaths was kept otherwise than in a hard copy form during the period of 1 July 2009 until immediately before the day that clause 1 comes into force, the register is to be treated for the purposes of section 25(3) of the Act as being kept in the form in which the copy was kept—for example, in electronic form.

Subsection (5)(c) provides that any entry in the register signed by a person before clause 1 comes into force is to continue to be regarded as having been signed by the person for the purposes of the Act. Subsection (5)(d) allows the Registrar General to dispose of any certified copies of births and deaths received under section 27 of the Act, and any information contained in those entries that is kept in electronic form. This will negate the need for the Registrar General to hold entries of births and deaths in both paper and electronic form. Subsection (6) outlines the period previously mentioned in subsection (5) as beginning on 1 July 2009 and ending immediately before the day clause 1 comes into force.

Clause 5 introduces the schedule, which contains minor and consequential amendments to primary legislation as a consequence of the move from paper registers to the registration of births and deaths in an electronic register. It includes amendments to the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, the Registration Service Act 1953, and minor amendments to other Acts.

Clause 6 delegates to the Secretary of State the power to make further consequential provisions by regulations on any provision of the Bill. Regulations that amend, repeal or revoke any provision of primary legislation must be made according to the affirmative procedure. Regulations that do not amend, repeal or revoke any provision of primary legislation are to be made according to the negative procedure. I am sure the Committee will agree that that gets the balance right in this case.

Clause 7 covers extent, commencement and short title. Clause 7(1) sets out that clauses 1 to 4 extend to England and Wales only, except as provided in any amendments or repeals set out in the schedule. The remaining clauses extend to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The clause sets out the coming into force dates and the way in which the Bill may be cited.

That is a run-through of the granular details of what the Bill will do. I very much hope it will secure the approval of the Committee.

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[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful for the intervention and will relay that to the Minister responsible, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield has heard those comments as well.

[Mr Mitchell]

In view of what the right hon. Member for Warley has said, it is worth clarifying that issues of fraud when registering births and deaths are different from registering car ownership. The point made about the DVLA is clear and right. On Report and at Third Reading, we may explain to the House the additional steps available to the registrars for combating fraud. It is up to them to determine the steps taken, and if they require secondary legislation, the Minister will look favourably on that.

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend—the Member in charge—for setting out that position. The current legislation is restrictive and does not reflect on society. I know that right hon. and hon. Members recognise the importance of the changes to modernise the process of registering births and deaths. The Government are supportive of this Bill and look forward to it passing today. I wish my right hon. Friend well in its speedy passage.

[Mr Mitchell]

I hope, Ms McVey, that you feel the issues that should have been raised in this Committee have been, and that we can proceed to vote on the various clauses.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 2 to 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill to be reported, without amendment.