Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

1. What progress is being made on completing the electoral register.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

10. What progress is being made on completing the electoral register.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (John Penrose)]

Since June 2014, more than 11 million people have applied to register to vote, three quarters of whom used the ultra-convenient online system, which takes less time than boiling an egg. At the general election, there were 400,000 more entries on the register than before, and thanks to individual electoral registration, 96 out of every 100 have been confirmed as genuine. We are now focusing on the remaining four in every 100 and, by December, electoral registration officers will have attempted to contact each of them nine times over 18 months. Any who are genuine voters will be confirmed on the register, and the remaining inaccurate entries—people who have moved away, died or registered fraudulently—will be removed.

[John Penrose]

I agree strongly with my hon. Friend. The underlying point behind individual electoral registration is that it requires genuine proof of identity, which the old system did not. The need to provide information such as date of birth and national insurance number ensures that the opportunity for fraudulent registration is greatly reduced.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am reassured to hear that 96 out of every 100 voters have been proved to be genuine since the roll-out of individual electoral registration, but will the Minister tell me what further action is being taken to target the four in every 100 who appear not to be genuine?

[John Penrose]

This is an important issue. We have made up to £3 million available to local authorities to pursue the remaining four in every 100. By the end of this year, all those people will have been contacted up to nine times, either by phone, email or letter, or by someone knocking on their door, in order to confirm that they are genuine voters with a pulse, in which case they will have been confirmed on the register. We want to ensure that we do not inadvertently disfranchise them. Anyone who is left over will almost certainly be a ghost voter—a ghost in the machine; a data error—and can therefore be safely removed.