Voter Registration

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams.

Securing a debate on voter registration is timely with the general election now in the near future. It gives us the opportunity to discuss the enormous changes in the electoral register, a process that started in England and Wales on 10 June this year and in Scotland after the referendum on 19 September. For a democracy to work well, the system needs to be as easy as possible to enable as many eligible people as possible to vote. The first step in the process is to have an accurate, up-to-date and as complete a register as possible.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

I agree with my hon. Friend absolutely about the importance of having as accurate an electoral register as possible. She began by indicating that the time scale is tight. Would it not be sensible for the Government to allow more time, so that we can be certain that we have as many people on the electoral register as is humanly possible?

[Julie Elliott]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. In the main debate when the measure passed through the House, I said that I agreed in principle with individual voter registration, but that it had to be implemented in a way that works. The new system, however, is simply being rushed through. My fear is that because the changes are being done at speed, and because of the lack of funding available to implement them, they will disfranchise millions of people. That does not improve our democracy at all.

The groups being disfranchised that I am most concerned about are: students and young people; people who live in the private rented sector; and adults with no dependent children who are not yet claiming pensions or not on benefits. I will start with students and young people.

My city, Sunderland, is a university city, so in term time we have an influx of many thousands of young people. They do not always live at home—historically, their parents would have put them on the register at home—they move more frequently and they have a transient lifestyle, whether because they are students away in term time and back home in holidays or simply because they are young people leaving home for the first time, living with friends. Their national insurance number is often registered to the address of their parents’ home, so if they tried to go on the electoral register where they are students the data would not match.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Sheffield, like Sunderland, is a student city, and I represent more students than any other Member of Parliament—36,000. Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating the university of Sheffield on its work—which we hope to roll out to Sheffield Hallam university next year—in seamlessly integrating electoral registration with student enrolment to encourage maximum registration? The Government have given some support. Will she encourage them to take up such a process much more vigorously, working with Universities UK and the National Union of Students, and to look at the opportunities beyond universities in colleges, schools and other institutions?

[Julie Elliott]

I absolutely endorse what my hon. Friend says. I have been in discussions with the university of Sunderland in recent weeks to look at that very issue and how it can maximise the number of students on the register. If the Government are prepared to get involved in such a process, that would be a help.

A final point about students and their NI number is that they might have the wrong number allocated, although they would be unaware of that. MPs do not deal with this problem every week, but it is not an uncommon situation for people to come to us because they have the wrong NI number, which they only become aware of when they try to claim a benefit.

For example, not so long ago I had a case of a young woman who had left school and become a hairdresser. She had always worked since leaving school and paid her taxes and her NI. It was only when she applied for maternity pay, when expecting her first child, that she suddenly got a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions saying that she had made no NI contributions. Clearly, that was not the case, and she could prove easily through payslips and her employee records that she had a full NI record. She was not aware of the problem, however, until she got to the point of needing to use the record.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend gives a graphic example of the issue with national insurance numbers. Is she aware that 35% of Muslim women do not have NI numbers? Where does that leave them when getting registered under the new system?

[Julie Elliott]

That is a pertinent point. The NI system is a good one in general, but it has flaws and is not perfect, and many issues arise from that. As I explained, many people will not be aware that there is a problem with their NI number until they do not data-match.

Given the housing shortage, the private rented sector has grown exponentially over the past 10 years. Even in my city, where house prices are relatively low, there is a shortage of social housing and people have difficulty getting mortgages, because of low wages, zero-hours contracts and so on. Even in Sunderland, therefore, we have a housing crisis and more people than ever, from all walks of life and all age groups, living in the private rented sector. It is a transient population, because of how our tenancies work, with short-term tenancies and people often moving home every six months, and they are difficult to reach.

The final group I want to mention are adults with no dependent children. They are not claiming benefits, their children are grown and they do not receive child benefit any more, and they are not yet at pensionable age. Often, that group of people are at a time in their life when they are downsizing and moving home. Does everyone remember to change the address in their NI records? Most people do not have that on their list of things to change. They are not doing anything wrong; they are still paying their contributions through their employer and so forth, but again their NI records are not as accurate as they should be. Again, only when those people seek a benefit from the NI system does that fact come to light. It is easily sorted out, but in the meantime they will not data-match. Furthermore, working people are busy people and they are often not at home when canvassers call, when the local authority is trying to improve their records. Again, through no fault of their own, they will be disfranchised.

Those are all genuine examples of people who do not actively want to be unable to vote, but have lifestyles that, under the new system and the speed of its introduction, make them difficult to reach. They will therefore fall off the register and be unable to vote.

I want to talk a little about my constituency. Sunderland Central falls within the electoral and local authority district of Sunderland. Our electoral services are famous. They do things well, they are efficient and quick, and they take enormous pride in what they do. It is a well resourced department, which does things well, to the extent that, historically, people from the department have gone around the world to help improve other countries’ electoral administration. That is how good they are. They have put Sunderland on the map. They are very quick at counts, to the point that at the past few general elections there has been no competition for us—nobody even tries any more. The votes for the three Sunderland MPs are counted, and the results are known, on the day that the votes have been cast, which is unique in this place. At the previous general election my seat was third to be declared in Sunderland, but my result was still in at 20 minutes to midnight, so I could relax a long time before many of my colleagues.

The electoral services staff in Sunderland have taken the changes incredibly seriously. They were part of the pilot and have been involved in working groups with the Government and the Electoral Commission to look at how to implement the system. Yet even in Sunderland there are massive problems. I want to read out a few things that the head of electoral services told me yesterday. She said:

“Following the Confirmation Live Run…Sunderland had a match rate of 84%. This was improved with Local Data Matching which brought the match up to 92%. This meant that in real terms Sunderland then delivered 15,753 Household Enquiry Forms…which were comprised of empty properties, student accommodation and non-responders to last year’s canvass. After reminders”—

that is, two things through the post—

“and a visit from personal canvassers, Sunderland has an outstanding total of 6,128 which is about 39% of the original total.”

Even after two letters and a personal call, Sunderland is still more than 6,000 people short under the new system.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I very much agree with the points my hon. Friend is making. The Government funding for following up on non-responders and new electors is based on getting a 50% response to the first reminder and a 50% response to the second, but I believe that in some places the response to the first reminder has been as low as 10%. Does she agree that the Minister needs to put more money into the process if we are to get the response rates up?

--- Later in debate ---

[Julie Elliott]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. More money and more time are needed to get the system right. As I said at the beginning, in principle we agree with individual voter registration, but the implementation has not been right.

[Chris Ruane]

On the dry run and the number of local government departments that then conducted their own local data-matching, there are 380 electoral registration officers in the country, but only 137 wrote to the Electoral Commission to say that they had done their dry run. My county was one—I pay tribute to our ERO, Gareth Evans, for doing so—and my hon. Friend’s county got an extra 10% registered. But two thirds could not be bothered. Was the Electoral Commission too lax in its monitoring and policing of the dry run?

[Julie Elliott]

The point is well made. Not enough information, time or thought has gone into how registration is happening. My hon. Friend’s electoral registration unit and my own are among the best in our countries, but quite frankly not all EROs are of the same standard. They vary enormously. They do not always use the same computer systems. Some are better than others, and some are better resourced than others. There is massive variation. We have one of the best electoral services departments in the country, but we are still having problems. The figures for some of the worst in the country will be dreadful.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely debate. Does she agree that it is also important to recognise the really hard work done by canvassers, who go out there and chase the information? I have talked to the canvassers in my constituency working on behalf of the ERO, and the reality is that they have not had proper pay increases for some time. There is even more pressure on them now. There is a real issue with capacity for that resource at this crucial time.

[Julie Elliott]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. As I said, in Sunderland we have put a lot of effort and resources into the matter, but we are constrained by a massively reduced local authority budget. That is the backdrop to some of what is going on.

As I was saying, 92% of households matched after the live run but there may now be residents in those houses that we do not know about. They are deemed to have been matched, and have not been canvassed, so if new people have moved into the properties in addition to those who have been matched, we will not know about them. The figure is misleading.

We could have another mini-canvass in January or February. I understand that the Minister is currently considering whether to fund that. A mini-canvass is absolutely essential and should be mandatory for local authorities. As I have said, my local authority is doing everything it can to make its register as accurate and workable as possible, but so far many authorities have not done as we have. The Government need to look carefully at funding a mini-canvass and making it mandatory that electoral registration officers carry it out.

Sunderland sent out more than 13,000 invitations to register—they are for the red and amber mismatches from the confirmation live run—and have just started door-knocking for those. As yet, there has been no response for almost 11,000 of them. That is how hard to reach some people and places are.

Another issue is that the system of postal vote registration has changed; so has the information that could be used to match people and keep them on the postal vote register. In Sunderland we were part of a national pilot in 2004 of all-out postal vote elections, as a result of local authority boundary and ward changes. Since then, on average around 40% of the electorate in Sunderland has used postal votes. People like voting by post in Sunderland. It is effective and efficient, with a very high turnout. There are probably many reasons for that: although we are a university city our indigenous population is quite aged, and older people tend to like to vote by post. We also have quite inclement weather a lot of the time, so people often do not like going out to vote—the north-east coast is beautiful but it can be very cold.

[Wayne David]

I will not question for one moment the beauty of Sunderland or its weather. My point is connected to my first intervention on the speed of the introduction of the changes. One reason the Government are so keen to press ahead as quickly as humanly possible is the perception of fraud, particularly with regard to postal votes. Does my hon. Friend agree that the perception is not necessarily the reality, and we should go on the reality? The truth is that very little electoral fraud takes place.

[Julie Elliott]

I absolutely agree—that is my next point. There has been only one serious electoral fraud issue in the past 10 years or so. Electoral fraud is a serious issue. If is it happening anywhere it absolutely needs to be tackled, but it is not happening on a mass scale; in my experience it certainly is not happening with postal votes.

As I was saying, a lot of people in Sunderland vote by post. They are used to it and do it every time, so it is their normal voting pattern nowadays. According to the records in Sunderland, difficulties with matching, sign-up and other issues mean that some 1,740 people currently on the postal vote register are going to drop off it, and will not know that. It will get to the day when postal votes need to be cast and they will not have their postal vote. I am quite sure they will ring up to say that they have not received it, and will be told, “You are not on the postal vote register any more.” That simply is not good enough. Those people may not be able to get out to a polling station. If they can, they may go and vote in person on the day, but as I said a lot of them are older and are not in the best of health, so are not able to do that.

Does it really help our democracy to disfranchise people because of the situation with the postal vote register? Historically, other data that a council holds—perhaps council tax records—have been used to data-match, to make sure that people kept their postal vote. That is no longer going to be allowed to happen, and the Government need to look at that.

Will the Minister fund a mini-canvass? Will he make that decision urgently, because we are now into October? A mini-canvass needs to take place early in the new year, and I have outlined the reasons for that. Is he comfortable with the problems that are arising? Estimates are that 7.5 million people are not usually registered, and the latest estimates I have seen are that 5.5 million more will drop off the register under the new system. That means 13 million people will be disfranchised at the next general election. Is the Minister comfortable with that? What other plans does he have to put right the implementation and roll-out of the system?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I thank the shadow spokesperson for his remarks, and I thank everyone who has spoken in the debate. In particular, I congratulate the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) on securing the debate, and I thank her for her interest in the important topic of voter registration.

Individual electoral registration is one of the biggest modernisations of electoral law in this country for 100 years. As my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) mentioned, for the first time we are not relying on the head of a household to register everyone in that household; people can register themselves. In addition, we have online registration, so that people can register to vote in as little as three minutes. The introduction of online registration will allow the mobile populations that have been mentioned, such as students and private renters, to register from their smartphones. That is a big modernisation, which we should all recognise and celebrate.

[Julie Elliott]

Are there any statistics yet on how many people are registering online?

[Mr Gyimah]

Since the launch of IER on 10 June, the digital service has processed more than 2.5 million applications. Almost 70% of those were made online through the “Register to vote” website, which has a satisfaction rate of more than 90%.

I am conscious of the time, so I will try to address all the points that have been raised as fast as I can. A lot has been said about the transition to IER, and there has been some bombast, hyperbole and conspiracy theory. The transition was speeded out as part of the coalition Government’s programme to tackle electoral fraud and rebuild trust in our elections. The timetable is phased over two years to help to manage the risk that the transition will impact on the general election. I want to put on record that no one who registered to vote at the last canvass will lose their right to vote at the general election in 2015. It is for Parliament to decide in the summer of 2015 whether the transition will conclude in 2015 or at the end of 2016. The phase-in of the transition to IER with a carry-forward will allow those who are not individually registered by the time of the 2015 general election to vote in that election. I hope that will provide some reassurance that no one will be disfranchised, which is the word that has been used so far.

Of course, we must be mindful of the pitfalls of introducing a new method of registering to vote, and we should focus on the completeness and accuracy of the register. Much has been said about the need for the register to be complete, and the Government and I agree with everyone on the need for that, but we cannot ignore the importance of accuracy. Without an accurate register, we risk undermining the very elections on which the system is based, so we must not simply sweep away the importance of accuracy.

During the process, we have had to learn a lot of lessons from Northern Ireland, which is a point that was raised several times during the debate. We have introduced some safeguards, such as the confirmation process, the carrying forward of electors, online registration, the retention of the annual canvass and the maximisation of registration funding. So far, £4 million has been made available to help all local authorities and five national organisations to maximise the register and deal with the problems that have been identified.