Voter Registration

Debate between Gloria De Piero and Matt Hancock

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on the problems with the gov.uk voter registration website just before the deadline for voter registration for the EU referendum.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Matthew Hancock)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to set out the Government’s position. Whatever your view, Mr Speaker, or anyone else’s on the question on the ballot paper on 23 June, the EU referendum is a very important moment in our democracy. Over the past three months, 4.5 million people have applied to register to vote. Very high levels of voter registration have been successfully handled over the past month by the systems, and in the last week alone more than a million people have applied. Yesterday, 525,000 people successfully completed their application. That is a record. At its peak yesterday, the website was handling three times the volume of applications at the previous record peak, which was just before the general election last year.

My strong view, and the view of the Government, is that anyone who is eligible should be able to register to vote in the EU referendum. Unfortunately, because of the unprecedented demand, there were problems with the website from 10.15 pm last night. To give the House a sense of the scale of the demand, the peak before the 2015 general election was 74,000 applications per hour. Last night, the system processed 214,000 per hour at its peak before it crashed. Many who applied to register after 10.15 pm were successful, but many were not. The problems with the website were resolved around the deadline at midnight.

We are urgently looking at all options and talking to the Electoral Commission about how we can extend the deadline for applying to register to vote in the EU referendum. The website is now open and working, and we strongly encourage people to register to vote online. Anyone who has already registered does not need to submit a fresh application. We are also offering extra resources to electoral registration officers to cover any additional administrative costs.

A huge amount of work has gone into encouraging people to register to vote in a timely fashion. We began the registration drive ahead of the May elections. From the middle of April we began in earnest to promote registration. Departments, local authorities and civil society organisations have all helped to boost voter registration. I want to pay tribute to the work of all of them—everyone from Idris Elba to Emma Watson, and all others who have been involved. We are targeting under-registered groups, and consistently high numbers have registered throughout the past few weeks. It is in all our interests to ensure that as many people as possible are able to vote on 23 June at one of the most important moments in our democracy in a generation.

[Gloria De Piero]

Last night, tens of thousands of people trying to exercise their democratic right to register to vote were told, “The computer says no.” I welcome the announcement today that people should continue to register to vote and that their applications will be valid. However, we are no clearer about exactly how the Government plan to make this happen and what the new deadline for registration is.

I want to offer the Government Labour’s complete support across both Houses to do whatever it takes to get through any necessary legislation. This should be done today. What legislative options are open to the Government, and is one of the options being considered a statutory instrument, which could be quickly and efficiently scrutinised today? What is the new deadline to register to vote? People need complete clarity on how long they now have left, and it needs to be well advertised. Last night’s chaos was totally unacceptable. What stress testing was done on the website in advance, and what provisions were made for the predictable rise in traffic?

What will be done about postal votes, given that the deadline for applications is 5 pm today but is available only to those who are on the register? Will the Minister confirm that this will also be extended? People would never expect to be turned away from a polling station despite being in the queue before the close of the polls. Those queuing up online last night must not be turned away. We need clear answers on how they can still make their voices heard.

[Matthew Hancock]

First, I am grateful to the hon. Lady for Labour’s clear and unambiguous support for action—if necessary, legislative action—to put this right. The support of the Labour party in both Houses will be important if we need to get through emergency legislation. We are looking at legislative options, including secondary legislation, and I look forward to taking up such an option. We need to make sure that we get the details of any emergency legislation exactly right, since we will have to pass it at pace.

On the deadline that the hon. Lady mentioned, people should register to vote now. Those registrations will be captured by the system. We then have the legal question of whether captured applications can be eligible for 23 June, and that is the issue that we might have to deal with in legislation. [Interruption.] Labour Members are saying from a sedentary position, “What is the deadline?” I am absolutely clear: people should register now—today—and we will bring out further information as and when we can.

We did of course undertake stress tests, which the hon. Lady raised. We tested a significantly higher level of interest and of applications than at the general election last year, which is the best comparator, but, as I have said, the level of interest was significantly higher than the peak then and, because of the exceptional demand, the website crashed. Ultimately, the problem was born out of the fact that thousands and thousands—hundreds of thousands—of people want to vote, and the interest that that shows in expressing their democratic wishes is to be recommended.