Electoral Status: Online Access

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I am more than happy to work with the noble Lord and others on the practical consequences of the problems that we faced last week with the website and the lessons that can be learned as regards duplicates. As for the issue of automatic registration, I am sorry, but I have made the position clear.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

How can the Minister ignore the question of my noble friend Lord Grocott? We have now perhaps as many as a million new people on the register arising out of what has happened with the referendum. Surely, people on those registers should now be taken into account in the setting of boundaries; otherwise, the boundaries will be false boundaries and not relevant. Is it not a fact that if the Government do not do this, they will be showing political bias?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I refute the final point that the noble Lord makes. Without defined data and a set of registers to assess, it is impossible to run a review. Registers for a boundary review are necessarily a snapshot. As regards the number of applications, it is the case that reviews have always been conducted like this. I say further that we need to wait for these registers to be compiled to see how many of those who have applied to register to vote are duplicates or not.