(11 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberLike you, Mr Speaker, I am a great respecter of Parliament, so I suspect that I should not guarantee anything, but my intention is to bring forward proposals on which I look forward to working with my hon. Friend and all others who take an interest. As I said, the process ought to be transparent, robust and fair, and I look forward to making sure that it meets that quality mark.
5. What assessment he has made of the most effective ways of ensuring the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register.
The Government are committed to doing all they can to maximise registration. We have published detailed research, which has informed our plans to use data-matching, targeted engagement with under-registered groups, and new technology to modernise the system as we go into individual electoral registration, to make it as convenient as possible for people to register to vote.
Wigan has had great success in increasing the number of people registered to vote. However, there are still many more people recorded in the census than in the comparable electoral register. Does the Minister therefore agree that drawing the parliamentary boundaries on the basis of census data is a much fairer way of achieving equal constituencies?
In short, the census data come out only once every 10 years, which is rather a drawback. There are a number of other differences as well, which suggests that the electoral register is a better source to use.