Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
Main Page: Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Royall of Blaisdon's debates with the Cabinet Office
(10 years, 9 months ago)
Lords Chamber
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps are being taken to increase the number of people who are registered to vote in the United Kingdom.
My Lords, the Government have announced today that £3.6 million of additional funding will be distributed equitably among electoral registration officers and local authorities, according to levels of underregistration, to help with the costs of local activities for maximising registration. A further £215,000 is being used to fund directly a number of national organisations, as announced yesterday, to develop approaches to maximising registration among particular target groups. The Government welcome all initiatives that promote democratic engagement, such as Bite the Ballot’s National Voter Registration Day today.
My Lords, I welcome that announcement from the Government and I pay tribute to Bite the Ballot for organising hundreds of events with the aim of registering today thousands of young people to vote. The Minister spoke warmly yesterday of citizenship lessons but warm words butter no parsnips. I strongly urge the Government not to encourage but to ensure that an inspiring citizenship curriculum is taught in every school, including academies and free schools, and that every school should facilitate everyone of or near voting age to register to vote. Will the Government also consider enclosing electoral registration forms with all their official communications with young people, for example those regarding national insurance numbers and driving licence applications?
My Lords, the last point is one that I will take back, as we are certainly considering how best to encourage all this. The new citizenship programme for study, which has now been agreed to be taught from September 2014, stipulates that pupils should be taught about parliamentary democracy and the actions that citizens should take in democratic and electoral processes to influence decisions locally, nationally and beyond.