David Morris
Main Page: David Morris (Conservative - Morecambe and Lunesdale)Department Debates - View all David Morris's debates with the Cabinet Office
(14 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Harper
I thank the Chairman of the Communities and Local Government Committee for raising that point. As well as writing to local authorities, I will write to a number of other organisations, including civil society bodies, in looking for ideas on how to tackle this issue. I said in my statement that we will look at public databases. Other issues arise if we want to look at private databases, but we are considering that too as we want to use a wide variety of sources. As I will be writing to local authorities, I urge hon. Members who are concerned about registration to speak to their local authorities and to encourage them to participate in those pilots. We want a wide range of authorities to take part, and we want to look at a range of data sources because we want to discover which of them are the most effective before we roll this out across the country.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the statement. I have listened to what hon. Members have said, and it seems to me that while nobody will be removed from the register, there is a certain amount of uncertainty in respect of eligibility to vote. Through these various registration documents, will the Minister consider giving people a particular number that could be annexed on to the national insurance number?
David Morris
No, not an ID card. Far from it; it will be a number, and that number will transfer with them if they move addresses. That would be—
David Morris
It would not be an ID card. It would be a number that was unique to each person.
Mr Harper
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. The whole point of using the national insurance number as the check is that it is a number that is attached to the individual. I think my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Mr Harris) were in danger of anticipating the debate to come on removing ID cards and the national identity register.