Representation of the People Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

We are saying here that we do not want to legislate for a minimum number of datasets that should be used to determine someone’s existence. The level of assurance provided by a dataset will depend on its quality and the information it contains. In some cases, one or two robust datasets may provide sufficient evidence that individuals are entitled to be registered, but others may not. Requiring EROs to consult additional datasets in every case could therefore impose unnecessary administrative burdens without improving confidence in the outcome. I hope that this assurance shows the Committee that the Government are fully committed to maintaining the integrity of the electoral register and that the noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.

I welcome the intention behind Amendment 49. The Government are committed to working towards making better use of data across government for registration purposes, but we do not believe that creating a new obligation for the Department for Work and Pensions is necessary or that it would achieve the desired outcome. We intend to utilise the powers in the Bill to make regulations to facilitate the sharing of data between government bodies and to assist EROs in carrying out their functions on the basis of agreed data-sharing arrangements. As part of this, we are exploring the use of DWP data.

MHCLG already has a successful agreement in place with the DWP to check the identity of individuals applying to register to vote, and we are exploring the potential to make greater use of DWP data for registration purposes. However, we know that the DWP’s database, including national insurance data, does not hold all the data required to determine eligibility for registration. Therefore, we could not rely solely on the DWP data. For those reasons, the Government do not think this proposal is the right way forward.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

I just have some questions, which are to help purely with my understanding. We are talking about auto-enrolment and auto-registration, which effectively means that we have an electronic system which will review a series of databases and will then throw out that, for example, Fred Smith should be eligible to vote in this area. In order for it to do that, the Government are going to have to programme the system, and the guidelines will be within the system. It cannot be up to the electoral registration officer to have a whole load of data thrown at them which they have to manually trawl through.

The Minister does not necessarily have to answer me today, but it would be quite helpful to have a flowchart showing how the Government envisage the auto-enrolment working, with the data coming in and the information the system throws out that the electoral returning officer will then have to review. The Minister is making comments about the electoral returning officer not being certain, but he or she can only be certain based on the information fed into the database and the information received out of it. I appreciate all the statements the Minister has made, but I find that flow-through a little bit hard to understand. I think it would be very helpful for Members of the House if they had that guidance.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

We are working on the guidance. At the same time, we are going to set off with a whole series of pilots to work out what works and what does not, and how we can improve it. If noble Lords look at other countries, such as Canada, they started the whole process of automatic enrolment in the 1990s and they are improving the system all the time. At the end of the day, if there is a problem, the EROs can make the final decisions if they think the information they are going to base decisions on is not accurate enough.

On Amendment 50, we have explored the possibility of using the occasion of issuing national insurance numbers to teenagers when they are approaching their 16th birthday as an opportunity to register them to vote. However, I understand that nationality is not routinely recorded against all entries in the DWP data. In addition, not all young people are on the DWP database—for example, due to having been in care or their parents not having applied for child benefit. In line with the powers proposed in the Bill, individuals will also need to be of voting age—which for reserved elections is currently 18 and soon to be 16—before they can be added to the register without submitting an application, once the relevant provisions are in effect. For these reasons, while sympathetic to the intention, the Government have serious concerns about the effectiveness of this approach.

Amendment 51 prevents non-British citizens who are eligible to register to vote from being registered without an application or their entry being altered without an application. Amendment 62 also seeks to extend this exclusion to any pilots of registration without application. The Government have no plans to change the eligibility criteria for who can register to vote in reserved elections. We also do not think it would be fair to establish an automated voter registration system in which some eligible citizens cannot be directly registered or their details directly updated.

Amendment 52 would require higher and further education providers in England to share data with electoral registration officers to enable young electors to be registered. This Government are committed to supporting more university and college students being registered to vote. Under the powers in the Bill, we plan to test registration without an application using locally available data in a number of areas around the UK. The Electoral Commission will then review the effectiveness of the new approaches tested.

As part of this, electoral registration officers will be able to enter into data-sharing agreements with higher and further education providers in their local area so as to identify eligible individuals who are unregistered or who have moved. Further detail will be set out in secondary legislation and in guidance. I hope that provides reassurance to noble Lords.

On Clause 17, I note the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, intend to oppose Clause 17 standing part of the Bill. Voter registration is core to our democratic system. It is right that changes to voter registration be carefully scrutinised and assessed. Direct registration, alongside other measures, will support the objective of improving the completeness and accuracy of electoral registers. Together with Clause 18—which will create a new duty for EROs to update people’s personal details in the electoral register when they are aware that these have changed—these changes have the potential to reduce the estimated 7 million to 8 million people who are unregistered or inaccurately registered, a figure that has been used more than once today.

Direct registration also has the long-term potential to reduce burdens on EROs, who should need to spend less time following up with individuals who have not responded to invitations to register to vote.

In using data for direct registration, EROs must be assured that the person is eligible to be registered to vote. Those who will be directly registered will be informed and have the right to opt out of the process during a response period. Particular categories of elector, such as anonymous electors, will also be exempt.

I hope noble Lords will be reassured that direct registration will at first be tested in pilots in a number of areas. This will be in different locations and settings, with different characteristics and challenges. We are working with the Electoral Commission to develop the assessment criteria and ensure a wide range of different areas can participate. I appreciate the interest of the noble Baroness and others in voter registration, and I recognise the importance of getting this right. The Bill—and secondary legislation—will lay the foundations for more automated voter registration in safe and responsible ways.

I recognise the intention behind Amendment 58, which seeks to promote transparency around the operation of the electoral registration system. It is in support of that objective that substantial information on voter registration is already made publicly available. Noble Lords may be aware that the public may easily access information on registration applications at the online register to vote performance dashboard. These arrangements already provide a significant degree of transparency regarding applications to register to vote, while recognising that applications are determined by registration officers who are statutorily responsible for maintaining the register for the area for which they are responsible. The amendment would also permit the publication of information at ward level. However, the Secretary of State does not hold registration data at that level of granularity and would therefore not be able to publish the information envisaged by the amendment.

I welcome the enthusiastic support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister of Burtersett and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for the cause of automated voter registration through their Amendment 59. I reassure noble Lords that the Government are committed to moving to more automated registration, and we are putting the necessary foundations in place through the Bill. I assure the Committee that officials are working closely with counterparts at the Home Office, the Passport Office, DWP and HMRC to explore data sharing in support of more automated registration. However, these are extremely complex new approaches, and we will need to be certain we have the right arrangements in place and that we have tested those very robustly before they are rolled out widely. Setting a firm deadline in primary legislation, before we can be certain that we will be ready, would not, in my view, be the best way to secure the progress that we all wish to see.

On Amendment 61, our plans for voter registration without application are about making registration simpler and easier. These are significant reforms and we need to test them to ensure we get them right. We hope pilots will commence soon after the necessary legislation is in effect. The Electoral Commission will undertake an independent review to inform decisions about wider implementation, so there will be a significant degree of external evaluation of the new approach. The Boundary Commissions for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are independent of government. The timings of parliamentary boundary reviews are set by legislation, which the Government have no plans to change. Amendment 61’s commitment to ensuring all eligible voters can participate and are appropriately represented in our democratic process is one I share, but I do not believe a further independent review is needed. 

On Amendment 63, if the concern is that these powers could be used to alter who is entitled to register and vote, I assure the Committee that this is not the case. Clause 20 of the Bill creates a new power for the Secretary of State to make regulations to pilot changes to the voter registration process. Those powers are carefully defined and are limited to what the Bill describes as “voter registration provision”.

The Bill goes on to make clear what falls within that definition at Clause 21. It is made clear that this is limited to provision about registering individuals who are entitled, under existing franchise eligibility criteria, to be registered. It also allows for existing register entries to be amended or removed. Crucially, it does not provide a mechanism to alter the eligibility criteria for registration.

Amendment 67 would require the Secretary of State to publish a plan for implementing Part 2 of the Bill within two months of this part of the Bill coming into force. I agree with and share the goal that we must move as fast as possible. I am sure that the House will welcome the news that more information about the direct registration pilots will be published shortly. This will include further information about how the pilots will work in practice and the prospective timetable.