Registers of Births and Deaths Bill

Flick Drummond Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 26th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

I rise in support of the Bill and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti) on bringing it forward. It will help to update our way of dealing with a process that can add to the stress of situations that are joyful at the beginning of a life and sad at the end of one. I recall that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) introduced a similar Bill that did not progress beyond Report for reasons outside his control. I hope that we can complete that work and deal with the anomaly.

I should declare that I do not have a registry office in my Meon Valley constituency, because such offices are in the surrounding towns and cities of Petersfield, Havant, Portsmouth, Fareham, Eastleigh and Winchester. However, this is something that can help all my constituents with the important duties they have to carry out for their families. For example, the telephone registration of a death is particularly helpful, as there are so many things to do at that very tragic time—organising the funeral, writing to people and all the other things that have to be done—so I think this will make a huge difference.

It is important that we have accurate and timely records, but it seems no longer sensible to complicate the process in the way it is with the law as it stands. I know that we have dealt with this through the pandemic with measures that have amended some of the processes of registration, but the underlying system remains the same. I want to thank all the registry office staff, who have been working so hard to help people and keep records updated, for their efforts in these difficult circumstances. We can do much more to help them manage a system fit for the 21st century with the measures in this Bill.

The duplication of paper records and online records is outdated, although the practice only dates back to 2009, as my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden said. As we have moved on to digitising much of our national archives in a wider sense, we have developed systems for securely storing data, while ensuring that it can be queried when needed. It makes very little sense, in 2021, to require all the registry offices in the country to keep thousands and thousands of register books and secure them in a safe.

However, it is vital that the public have confidence in the process. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) questioned that earlier, but I believe the familiarity most people have with electronic record keeping nowadays means that they will trust it. Registering a death, in particular, can be a difficult or traumatic experience for relatives. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, all my constituents have to travel a considerable distance to do this. I hope the Minister will consider how this Bill could make that process less difficult in the future, perhaps by making it possible to do so—remotely—online.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I am grateful for that offer and shall certainly take it up, because a lot needs to be amended in the Bill. When I tabled amendments on Report last time, they were set out on the amendment paper on 12 March, but we were not able to make much progress. It disappoints me that my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden has so far shown no willingness to take on board any of the suggestions put forward in those amendments, the essence of which was to try to ensure that we still have physical, hard copy registers alongside e-registers, so that we do not facilitate fraud and corruption in our registration service.

There has been a lot of talk of those of us who believe in having a hard copy record being backwards, and those who believe absolutely in modern technology and electronic records being the great modernisers, but let me share with the House a current live constituency case, about which I have written to the Home Office, as will become apparent in the course of my remarks.

The case is of a Ghanaian citizen, who has a Ghanaian passport. He came to this country about 20 years ago and now wishes to become a British citizen; he has indefinite leave to remain, and a driving licence, national insurance number and all the rest of it. His Ghanaian passport and his driving licence correctly identify his name, which consists of one forename and two surnames. I am not going to shout out his name in the House now, because I still hope that we will get a satisfactory answer out of the Department without the need to name and shame it publicly. He applied for British citizenship on 5 May 2021, and that was approved, subject to him attending a citizenship ceremony to receive his certificate. The certificate was issued correctly with his full name—his first name and his two surnames—so he thought that everything was fine. He then applied for a British passport and the Passport Office informed him that his surname did not match his citizenship certificate because only one name had been recorded as his surname. Subsequently, he spoke to the Home Office customer service team and was advised to fill in a form and post the certificate, with any proof of his correct name, to the Home Office. He sent off all that material—including his Ghanaian passport, his driving licence and, as the Home Office instructed, his cut-up indefinite leave to remain card—at the beginning of August.

The website said that corrections to citizenship certificates take 24 working days. After three months had elapsed, he contacted me and I contacted the Home Office. On 26 November, perhaps in anticipation of this debate, I received a reply from UK Visas and Immigration that sets out a whole lot of facts that we already know and I have shared with the House, and that the requested amendment is still outstanding. It says:

“Please be assured that this is being processed…In the meantime, an application can be expedited”.

I had already explained that the lack of his documents was preventing him from being able to start work as a van driver. That remains the situation.

[Mrs Drummond]

My hon. Friend is demonstrating very well why we should have electronic records: they can be passed forward and backwards much quicker than paper copies, which can also be lost in transit.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

The point is that there was an inaccurate translation. When he got his citizenship certificate, somebody mistransposed the full names and put just one surname on his certificate rather than two surnames. That is an example of what happens when we rely on electronic records rather than the actual records, because he is now having to prove to the Home Office—and it is taking a long time, as I have been explaining—that his name is as it is set out on his driving licence and in his Ghanaian passport. He is fortunate that he still had his original records, which we assume have not been lost in the post.