National Voter Registration Day

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in this country, it has not been compulsory to vote or to register to vote. That would raise all sorts of questions about civil or criminal penalties, and some fundamental questions about the relationship between the citizen and the state. This country has not wanted to use compulsion where it can possibly avoid it.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, might I take the noble Lord back to the original point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, which is the Northern Ireland experience? When individual voting was introduced there, there was an alarming drop-off in the number of young people registering, so we already know that that is a threat on the horizon. Northern Ireland came up with a good solution—the schools initiative—which effectively dealt with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, raised about formally registering all pupils. Surely, on the basis of the experience we already have from Northern Ireland, we should embrace that initiative and get schools to register all pupils when they come up to the age of 18.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government’s mechanism encouraging schools to use Rock Enrol!, a slightly different package, has so far received a fairly good take-up from schools. We very much want schools to encourage their pupils to register online, but we are having a dialogue about it with schools and teachers.