Voter Registration

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2014 Westminster Hall

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

I have taken a passionate interest in individual electoral registration for the past 13 or 14 years, since my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) alerted me to the drop in numbers between 1997 and 2001. I pay tribute to him for switching me on to that important issue—and to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott), who secured this important debate.

Democracy is an important issue today. Two key statistics are that at the last general election 11 million people did not vote, although they were on the register, and that 7.5 million people were not even on the register. That means that 18.5 million people did not participate in the democratic process. To put that in perspective, I should say that 10 million people voted Conservative and 8 million people voted Labour—more people did not get involved in the electoral process than voted for the two main political parties. Democracy today in Britain is in crisis, and the way the coalition Government have introduced IER will threaten it further.

The hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) is right: there was cross-party support for the changes in 2009. I opposed them for nine years and then supported them when we decided, with cross-party support, to introduce them after the 2015 general election. It was crucial to do that, because it would allow us to find the missing 7.5 million people who were off the register and get them back on for the 2015 election—because we knew there would be a drop-off.

When Labour introduced IER in Northern Ireland in 2001, there was a massive drop-off—something like 30% of people on the register disappeared from it. My colleagues from Northern Ireland will say that there was a degree of fraud there, which had not been addressed, and that is right, but even in 2011 the registration rate was still 71%. We need to learn the lessons of Northern Ireland, which are that when IER is introduced, registration will immediately drop.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I had a meeting with the Electoral Commission a couple of weeks ago and the latest figures are now 88% for Northern Ireland. That is only after a household door-to-door canvass was done. That had been dropped in Northern Ireland. The lesson is that there is a need to get people signed up by regularly going door to door; that cannot be left to town halls or electoral officers, as happened in Northern Ireland.

[Chris Ruane]

I agree. I shall bring part of my speech forward, to address the point. In 2008 the Labour Government said that every ERO must carry out door-knocking for non-responders. In 2008 16 EROs out of 383 did not do that. They broke the law. In 2009 there were 17 such EROs and in 2008 the number was down to eight. But what happened in the year of the new Government? The number of EROs who broke the law went from eight to 55. In 2012 it was 30 and in 2013 it was 23. That includes Gwynedd in 2012 and 2013.

It is appalling that Ministers and the Electoral Commission tolerated law-breaking with respect to the most important basic building block of democracy. That has not been addressed, although the coalition proudly boasts that it will introduce the biggest changes to UK democracy since universal suffrage—and there are still 7.5 million people missing from the register.

The cross-party support for IER was shattered in 2010 when the coalition Government decided that, ahead of the economy and all the changes that they said were needed in health, education and benefits, the No. 1 issue on which they wanted to focus forensically was bringing forward the date for IER by a year. Why was that? I have asked Ministers in oral questions, in Committee and on the Floor of the House. I asked the Minister, and he did not know. I had to tell him and previous Ministers in Committee the reason, which according to a parliamentary answer was mass concern among the public about fraud in the electoral system; apparently, the time scale had to be brought forward by one year to assuage that concern.

I will give the statistics for electoral fraud, which my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central has already given. There has been one proven and successful case in the courts over the past 10 years. The Electoral Commission and Ministers say that there is 37% concern. One of the surveys said that there was 37% concern, but others say that there is 10% concern—so for 10% concern, and one case in 10 years, the legislation had to be brought forward by one year. The real reason is party political advantage.

The equalisation of seats, with 7.5 million people missing from the register, was supposed to deliver the next election. Bringing IER forward by one year and knocking off perhaps 18 million people was supposed to deliver every election after that. That is not quite North Korea, but it is not far away. The issue has been handled in a party political way.

I pay tribute to the Liberal Democrats because they co-operated in the House of Lords, having realised what a train crash was happening. The Government proposed making an individual’s decision to go on to the register a lifestyle choice. For 350 years, this had been a civic duty for those who qualified to be on the register and to take part in democracy, but the Government wanted to change that to a lifestyle choice—“buy it if you want to; don’t buy it if you don’t”. That is the wrong approach, and so much so that the Liberal Democrats realised what was happening. I pay tribute to Lord Rennard for alerting his party to it.

Civic society was appalled. Magistrates were appalled because people are called for jury service from the electoral register. The police were appalled because they use the electoral register to find out where people who commit crimes live. Operation Black Vote was appalled because the biggest losers out there were the black and Asian communities. Unlock Democracy, the Electoral Reform Society and Bite the Ballot were concerned about the proposal, so the Government had to back-pedal from a lifestyle choice to a civic duty.

I pay tribute to the Electoral Commission for one of the few good things it has done. It formally warned the Government that if they carried on, of the people who do not bother to vote—65% at the last election, although it has been as low as 59%—41% will not register. It is like a banana republic: 40% of people in the country are not on the register. That is what the Conservative wing of the coalition Government proposed. That is what it thought it could get away with, but it was beaten by an alliance of civic societies and some Liberal Democrats.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) for his work in bringing civic societies together. We had public hearings in the House of Commons when people were allowed to express their fears. We took that message to the Electoral Commission and the Government, and the Government had to listen.