Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

The hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission was asked—

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

6. What assessment the Electoral Commission has made of the potential effect of individual electoral registration on preventing fraudulent electoral registration.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)]

The Electoral Commission recommended in 2003 that individual electoral registration should be introduced in Great Britain. Requiring all electoral registration applications to be verified makes it harder to create false register entries, and helps to prevent electoral and other types of fraud.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. As he said, the Electoral Commission recommended the adoption of IER in 2003. Does he agree that it is long overdue and that the ability to register online will make it much easier for many people to engage with the democratic process?

[Mr Streeter]

As usual, my hon. Friend is right: IER has been a long time coming, but it has been carefully and successfully introduced in the past 12 months. We must pay tribute to all the electoral registration officers all over the country for their hard work. As a champion of youth engagement in democracy in his constituency, he makes an important point about online registration. There is no question but that a lot of young people have exercised their ability to register online, so making sure that our register is as full as possible.