Voter Registration: Students

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have, of course, evaluated the Northern Ireland experience. We were dealing with paper transactions then and we are now moving to online transactions. Since the beginning of February, there have been nearly 500,000 online registrations, so we are very much achieving what we want, and we look forward to seeing more coming. The Northern Ireland experience was useful at the time. However, it was not a great success in maintaining registration: that there was a very substantial drop-off after the first year of registration for 17 year-olds to the level of registration of 18 to 19 year-olds.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I declare an interest as the chair of the All-Party Group on Voter Registration. When I asked the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, last week what the Government were doing to deal with the scandalous situation whereby, according to the Electoral Commission, 30% of 18 to 24 year-olds are not registered, he avoided answering the question, so I will give him another chance to do so today. What are the Government doing to deal with this serious matter, because from here it seems that they are doing very little to get these young people registered by 20 April to vote in the general election?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government are doing a great deal. We have provided an additional £14 million over the last 18 months precisely to deal with help in those areas. Most of that has gone to EROs in local authorities, with the largest proportion going to those in areas with a substantial number of students. We have also just funded a number of groups, many of which work with young people and disadvantaged groups, to assist in this process.