Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Commons Chamber

The Minister for the Cabinet Office was asked—

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

1. If he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of the transition to individual electoral registration.

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

7. If he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of the transition to individual electoral registration.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (John Penrose)]

The Electoral Commission will publish its assessment of the first full registers under individual electoral registration next spring. In the meantime, I am delighted to inform the House that the transition to IER is now complete. Ghost entries of people who have died or moved house have been removed. We now have a register that is clean, more accurate and less vulnerable to fraud than ever before. This is a vital foundation stone as we move on to the next big challenge: finding people who are legally entitled to vote, but have never been on the register, such as expats, students and people in private rented accommodation, and persuading them to sign up.

[Julie Elliott]

I thank the Minister for his response. University towns and cities are some of the areas worst affected by the Government’s rushed changes to IER. Will the Government allow universities to block-register their students this year?

[John Penrose]

I think the hon. Lady and I may mean slightly different things by block registration, but there is common ground, in that some very useful and effective new work is being done in places such as Sheffield, which is dramatically improving student registration rates. With any luck, we can take its example and persuade others to do the same.