General Election: Postal Voting Fraud

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My Lords, I will certainly get back to my noble friend on that question. The Government consider tackling electoral fraud to be a very high priority and they believe that more needs to be done to safeguard the integrity of elections. Indeed, this will certainly be looked into in the future with the Electoral Commission.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

Given the large number of people not currently registered and the likelihood that that number will grow with the introduction of individual registration, how much are the Government prepared to invest in supporting local authorities in ensuring that people do register?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My Lords, in 17 local authorities where there is a feeling that there is a problem at the moment, £500,000 has been made available to increase the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register. This should improve research and intelligence gathering, and help with the production of videos to educate the public.