Electoral Registration

Debate between Gary Streeter and Sadiq Khan

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

Absolutely. Having fewer and fewer people taking part in elections is a bad thing for all of us. The Government’s justification for getting rid of the voluntary phase was that it would save money, but it is right to remind the House that we warned that speeding up the process and stripping out the key safeguards was gambling with the completeness of the electoral register. We were not alone. Similar warnings were voiced by experts, academics, the Electoral Reform Society and the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who is in his place. We take no satisfaction in saying, “We told you so.”

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

Does the shadow Secretary of State not accept that anyone who was on the household register in July 2014 who is still in the same house remains on the new register today? Is that not a serious safeguard?

[Sadiq Khan]

I shall come to the data-matching shortly, but we have considered those on the register in December 2013 and those on the register in December 2014, after the data-matching. An estimated 1 million voters have dropped off the electoral register. For 1 million to be missing in a year is bad enough, but the trends in the groups that are unregistered is also worrying. Data coming in from local authorities are showing serious drops among students and those turning 18. In the patch of my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), the number registering fell from 630 to 114 in just 12 months. As has been said, the figure for attainers registering in Liverpool has slumped from 2,300 to just 76. Three areas with large number of students —Cardiff, Newcastle and Brighton—have seen drops of between 9% and 10.5% in the numbers registered.