Electoral Registration

Andrew Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nick Smith]

My hon. Friend has helpfully corrected me. He points to the difficulties of churn in many parts of the UK. I have been to the lovely town of Rhyl, and I know of the difficulties there in getting a complete register.

Last week, the Minister said that

“continuous registration is working for the majority of the population in Northern Ireland.”—[Official Report, 8 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 142.]

Registration of 51% would be a majority, but surely that is wordplay and shows a lack of ambition; after all, 71% completion is failing nearly a third of the eligible electorate. The Government must up their game. Electoral registration needs to be professionally marketed and administered in all Government contact with the public, and perhaps with private sector data as well. Given concerns about under-registration, there should be a full carry-forward of postal or proxy votes for the 2015 general election. If that does not happen, the Government must ensure that sufficient resources are provided, so that as many postal voters as possible are verified and able to vote.

As a constructive critic, the independent Electoral Commission must have an absolutely central role in the switch to IER. I hope that the Minister will tell us today when online voter registration will be ready for launch. The Government must invest in and develop accessible online registration with greater speed. If the internet is used successfully for banking and payment systems, surely it can be developed for voter registration.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way during this important debate. Does he agree that this plethora of initiatives—they are absolutely essential, as he is arguing—should include one by the Electoral Commission aimed specifically at people with literacy problems? I believe that they are under-represented on the register, and they certainly are in voting. Obviously, for that initiative to reach them, it needs to be delivered through audiovisual advertising.

[Nick Smith]

My right hon. Friend makes a good argument, and I hope that that will be included in the studies taking place. It is essential that as many people as possible can register and vote.

As we know, changes to electoral registration will be made at a time when local authorities face significant cuts. Expenditure in this area should be prioritised, because our democracy is too important to be whittled away by a thousand cuts.

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[Paul Blomfield]

I very much agree with that point, which I will move on to. The relationship between the boundary review and the number of people registered to vote—the basis on which we calculate boundaries—is an important issue. As it stands, the boundary review would exacerbate the problem, not simply because of under-registration, but because of the point in the electoral cycle at which that review would be conducted, with the next one being in December 2015.

I worry that individual registration threatens to make the situation worse, which is why I have argued that we should base our boundaries on adult population, not numbers of registered voters. Whether or not we go down that route, there is a need massively to improve voter registration, because if we do not, we risk creating a US-style democracy, with huge under-registration that excludes the disadvantaged and disengaged and focuses elections on the needs of the more privileged, so poisoning our politics.

I am sure that many measures will be proposed by my hon. Friends, but I want to concentrate on young people. From my election campaign, I can think of many examples of speaking to young people on the doorstep. At the outset of the conversation, it was clear that they had no intention of voting and that they would never have been on the electoral roll had it not been for their parents, but in many cases—the marked register confirms this—after that conversation and having engaged with the issues, they voted. That vote would otherwise have been denied them. The Government need to focus specifically on imaginative ways to ensure the effective registration of young people—working with schools, using social media and considering other ways to address that group.

I want to talk particularly about students. Not all students are young, but the vast majority are, and given the impact of Government policy on mature student entry, an even greater proportion of students will be young people in future. Many of them are worryingly disillusioned with democratic politics. The Liberal Democrats’ broken pledge on tuition fees—this is not a party point, but none of them is here to listen; it is of some concern that that great reforming party has chosen not to engage in the debate or to show any interest in enhancing electoral registration—has not simply damaged their party; it has damaged trust in politics for a whole generation of young people.

Both Sheffield’s great universities are in my constituency, with 32,000 of their students living there. They live there for at least 31 weeks a year, and many of them for 52 weeks; it is their main place of residence. They contribute to the economy and life of the city, and they have a right to have their voice heard in elections. At the university of Sheffield, there is currently block registration of all eligible students in university accommodation, but that is threatened by the legislation on individual voter registration. I assume that the Government do not think that our universities are guilty of electoral fraud, so I question the need to rule out block registration.

Even if that argument is not accepted, there is a need to mitigate that policy’s impact. The former finance officer of Sheffield university students union made the point about the difficulties of individual voter registration for students very forcefully. He said:

“When students first arrive at University and live in halls, amongst all the other things going on, registering to vote often isn’t a priority and it is comforting to know that it’s often done automatically. If this is changed then it would become another form to fill in during the whirlwind first few weeks away from home and some students, particularly those not engaged in democracy will not be registered.”

[Mr Andrew Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Like him, I have two universities in my constituency, and I strongly underline the points that he is making. Does he agree that a further difficulty is that the nature of much college and institutional accommodation makes it much more difficult to do a person-to-person, door-to-door canvass than in conventional streets? That will compound the problems that may occur with the under-registration of students.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention, and he is absolutely right. In Sheffield, there has been a trend away from houses in multiple occupation, which provided at least an opportunity for some contact during the canvass, to huge student flat complexes, in which the security arrangements make it impossible to engage by knocking on doors. That exacerbates the problem.

The difficulty of under-registration is that future boundary reviews will be conducted in the first term of each academic year. The students unions of both universities in my constituency run really vigorous electoral registration campaigns, and they have some impact, but they are held in the run-up to elections—in February, March and April—when people are beginning to think about voting. They do not run them in December, when data will be collected on which future boundary reviews will be based. When I am out talking to students in the days before elections, many of them are still unregistered when they finally decide that they want to cast their votes. Individual voter registration will effectively exclude tens of thousands of students—my constituents—from the electoral roll and therefore from consideration when boundaries are redrawn. They will be denied a voice unless we look at innovative ways to ensure that that does not happen.

I have spoken to the vice-chancellors of both Sheffield’s universities, and they would be happy for the voter registration process to be incorporated into the student registration process. I have discussed that idea with our electoral registration officer, who is keen to work with them. That process would involve a couple of simple questions on the student registration form, such as “Do you wish do register to vote?” Alongside that, there should be an explanatory note on entitlement to vote, because students are often confused about their rights to vote in their city of study and the city in which their parental home is located. That question would be linked to the collection of the student’s national insurance number, which would be a requirement of the process.

Sheffield is a great pioneering city, and we were at the forefront of the Chartist movement, too. If we can make the process work, there is no reason why it should not work elsewhere in the country. Will the Minister commit to meeting Universities UK and the National Union of Students to discuss that proposal and ways to maximise student registration?

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[Miss Smith]

I do not intend to answer that with a number, but as I have said many times and will say once more, we are all interested in the maximum level of registration in this country.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

Will the Minister respond to the very good point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) about the crucial difference that can be made by the ability of the canvasser on the doorstep to help people complete the form? Will she reconsider it and commit to moving in that direction?

[Miss Smith]

I will. I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman asks, as it reminds me to ensure that I answer the hon. Lady’s question. I do not believe that there is anything to prevent canvassers from helping on the doorstep. I am happy to come back on that in further detail, as I see that we are running out of time.

On the civil penalty for failing to make an application to register when requested to do so by a certain date, the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent asked me for a figure. It is currently subject to keen stakeholder engagement, and I look forward to being able to update the House in due course. In passing, I note under that heading that the civil penalty is about deterrence, not making money. The sum will fall to zero once the individual registers. There is no interest in turning it into a money pot; that is simply not what it is for. I reassure the Chamber that through the safeguards that I have described, we want a situation in which we have confirmed the majority of existing electors and automatically retained them in the register, which will allow us to ensure that the register is at least as complete as it is now while improving its accuracy during the transition to individual registration.

It is important that I discuss some other measures in the time available. The IER system must be flexible enough to respond to changes in society. Beyond the transition, we will assess the most appropriate channels for applications. We want it to be digital by default, and we want an IT service to underpin the process for validating all applications, in whatever format they are made.

The Government are, of course, committed to funding the transition to individual registration, as has been noted throughout this debate. We will fund local authorities in England and Wales directly through grants made under section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003, allocated for the purposes of paying for the transition. Local authorities will receive a non-ring-fenced specific grant to pay for the move to IER. It will not be included in the formula grant. Appropriate safeguards already exist in the legal duties, which will be seen by the House in secondary legislation, and those duties rest on electoral registration officers. Local authorities will clearly be obliged to fund a number of business-critical activities, and that is in compliance with their statutory duty to pay EROs’ properly incurred expenses. I am happy to deal with that matter more in correspondence if Members wish.

Encouraging democratic participation is vital, and I hope that hon. Members have noted my commitment to it in the flavour of my comments in this debate. We are seeking to work with a range of organisations to engage individuals and communities from all sections of society in the political process. I am afraid that I cannot avoid using a minute to respond to some of the more partisan points made by the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane). Nobody owns voters, places or cities. We all go out and work for them. I am sure that he joins me in that sentiment, and I look forward to working with him in his more bipartisan moments.

We know that registration levels are disproportionately low in some groups; I think that everybody has made that point in this debate. To help us understand current levels of electoral registration, we have carried out a detailed programme of research, including funding an Electoral Commission study on the completeness and accuracy of the register, an independent academic review of all available research and further studies into exploring the barriers to registration for groups missing from the register under the current system.

I said that I would mention some places on which the data-mining pilots are particularly focused. As I think hon. Members know, they are to be focused on attainers, students and recent home movers, among others. I have no concerns about being approached by Universities UK or the National Union of Students, although I note that those groups met my predecessor at a more urgent stage of the Bill. However, I am happy to have further such discussions with them. On the points made about student voters, I note that only 13% of halls of residence currently use block registration. That is instructive, as it suggests that there are alternative methods. It is vital to treat young people as adults who can and ought to register in their own right and under their own responsibility.

On other ways that we are working with groups in broader society, the Northern Ireland experience is helping us plan activities. We are working with Bite the Ballot and Operation Black Vote to increase understanding of the importance of voting and the process of registering to vote; I have done such events in Norwich, and I think it is important to do so.

We are continuing all those efforts to drive up registration rates as we move towards IER. To do so, we need partnerships with a range of organisations in the private, state, voluntary and community sectors. As I said, I welcome and appreciate all the good points made in this debate. I shall be speaking to the Electoral Commission later this week, as I do regularly as part of this work, and I shall impress on it as part of its responsibilities to communicate about registration to the broader public—hon. Members will know that that is one responsibility of the EC—the good points made in this debate.

In conclusion, the Government are fully committed to doing what we can to increase voter registration levels. There is no silver bullet solution. I do not think that increasing democratic engagement is the Government’s responsibility. To borrow words from the Scripts’ recent song “Hall of Fame”, I think it is a question for students, teachers, politicians and preachers. It is also a question for parliamentarians, parents, carers, role models and officials from political parties. We must provide people with compelling reasons to vote.