Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England) Order 2016

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I already am.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

I would not be so sure.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I come to this order with a slightly different approach and a different range of concerns from those on which I expect my noble friend will concentrate. We are now in a situation where, whatever happens to the process as outlined by the noble Baroness, the constituency boundaries at the next general election will—contrary to the recommendation of the Electoral Commission—be based on the register as it stood in December 2015. Of course, that does not mean that anyone registering since that date will not have a vote, but it means that the constituency boundaries will not necessarily reflect the, I hope, improved system of registration. Let me give an illustration of the potential differences. In my own city of Newcastle, the number on the electoral register as of last December was 183,961, and it is now 190,770, which is an increase of 6,809 or, by my calculation, an increase of 3.7% on the figure that will be the basis on which the new constituency boundaries are drawn.

The Government have introduced other significant changes, using their majority in another place, to change the whole system. I say that because local authority boundaries will become irrelevant under the new dispensation. I am wondering whether the Minister has—I do not blame her if she has not—seen the report by Lewis Baston, who is an expert in these matters. He recently produced a report for the Constitution Society in which, among other things, he states:

“As it currently stands under IER, the electoral register is too incomplete and unstable to provide a suitable basis for allocating parliamentary representation”.

He says:

“There have been noticeable levels of under-representation, which has varied with social and demographic characteristics”.

He also says:

“The use of the December 2015 purged register has also had a regional effect. London has three seats fewer than it should. Nationally, it has mainly affected urban areas, with the big core cities in particular had poor net completeness in electorate registration”.

However much that is corrected, partly as a result of the order we are discussing, it will not affect the boundaries that will apply in the next Parliament.

Lewis Baston also says:

“If the register numbers in December 2015 are inaccurate”—

they clearly were—

“the boundary review will contaminate the entire basis of the electoral system”.

He points out in relation to the discussions and debates before the boundary review was implemented that the,

“warnings made in 2014, of damage to the representation of London and the metropolitan areas, have come true and the map drawn in the 2016-18 boundary review will under-represent these areas”.

It is of course entirely coincidental that those are the areas in which the Labour Party is currently most strongly represented.

Lewis Baston goes on:

“The dramatic variations in total electorate that have taken place … between December 2012 and December 2015 undermine the idea that at any stage the electoral register is a reasonable estimate of the total local population entitled to vote”.

He cites examples demonstrating that in some places, such as Liverpool, the estimated net completeness of the register as at December 2015 is as low as 81%. By definition, it is therefore about 20% short of what the figure should really be. I repeat that that does not stop voters being registered, but it means the boundary situation has in effect been corrupted. One of the problems, as he concludes, is that there is,

“simply nothing that can be done under the current rules to rectify the problem that student constituencies are likely to be oversized (in terms of registered electors) when the election takes place”.

That is one facet of an issue which is generally of much wider application.

I am not sure whether the Minister will be able to respond to this today, but in my submission there is a very strong case for the Government to review and, indeed, to alter their decision to require the next general election, or at least any general election taking place after 2017, to be held on the basis of the boundaries as currently drawn. There is a need for a proper review of constituency boundaries to reflect the increase in the electoral register and other changes, which, I repeat, the order will help to facilitate. If the Government do not do so, they will have taken such a decision because they perceive a political advantage for the Conservative Party. That is no way in which a democratic process should be regulated, and I hope that the Government will reconsider their position. I repeat that they will return to the recommendations made by the Electoral Commission, who should be consulted in the light of the developing circumstances as we now see them.

--- Later in debate ---

Maybe I have missed something here, but it seems a bit curious that those statements are so firmly in opposite directions. In the era of EVEL, everything has to be looked at in relation to whether it applies to one part of the UK or another, and whether English MPs uniquely have a role to play on their own or whether English and Welsh MPs have a particular responsibility and interest. As I said earlier, given the need to make sure that the whole of the UK is marching as one, it would be helpful if the Minister could explain exactly what the application of the order is.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I have a few comments to make in respect of the order. As we have heard, the order establishes a number of pilot schemes, all of which are in England—which may cause a discrepancy in relation to what the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said. The pilot schemes all actually refer to councils in England, although the order itself certainly covers England and Wales. I do not have any objection to pilot schemes in principle: they enable us to see how other methods of collecting data and electorate details work and, if they prove to be more effective, they can be rolled out further to a wider area, which is very good.

My concern with these regulations is that we could get to the point at which the system that we end up with is not as effective as what we have in place now. I am a little worried about the references to cost in the notes. I want an absolute assurance from the noble Baroness that this is not just about driving down costs at the expense of having a robust system in place to make sure that we have a complete and accurate register.

I see the point—as we saw in the guidance note—about how the two-stage process could cause some confusion, but I still think that it is important that we have a robust process in place. Therefore, can the noble Baroness give a guarantee to the Grand Committee that nobody will be removed from the register due to a funding exercise to reduce costs? That would be a terrible place to find ourselves in.

One of the problems the Government have got themselves into, of course, is that they have not sought a wider range of partners to get people to register to vote. I have spoken in the Chamber many times about registration—as have the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm. It is important that we look at how we can use other organs of the state to get people to register to vote. Obviously local authorities have a major role, but we also talked about how we want universities to make a habit of getting young people to register to vote, as well as the Post Office and other organs, such as the DWP, where people go to pay their rent and things. How can we use those organs to get people to register to vote? There are other private organisations, delivering public services that we could also involve. I remember many years ago, when I was in New York, people would register to vote at the counters in the post offices. That was quite common. It was about 15 years ago and there was nothing unusual about it at all. In that state at least, they were using other organs to get people on to the register. It was actually part of the service: “Are you registered to vote? We have the forms here, and if you fill them out, we’ll do that”. We need to look at that along with the other organs of state and not just restrict ourselves to people having to respond to a canvass or fill in a form online themselves and submit it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, but I have not yet heard any explanation—I fear none is coming—of why we should not use the absolutely solid evidence of the electoral register that was, as it were, tested to destruction on 23 June 2016. What is the objection to using that register for the basis of this discussion? I cannot understand that.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

May I, too, come back to that point, rather than interrupt again later? I agree entirely with the Minister’s point about the need to have a defined date. It is absolutely right that we have to fix the date—I have no problem about that—and draw the boundaries on the basis of the figures at that date. It is absolutely spot on to say that we cannot move the date around. The problem the Government have to contend with is that we had a fixed, defined date, which was 1 December 2016, but they chose to scrap it and bring it forward by a year. The problem is that that was going to be the date, so all these people would have been on the register and would have been counted. I do not think the Minister was involved, but somebody in government sat around the table and decided to bring this forward by a year. We have never had an explanation of that. We have talked about ghost voters and other problems and this and that, but it was the Government’s decision. The December 2016 date clearly guaranteed the commission plenty of time over the next couple of years to have a review. The review would have come to both Houses some time in 2018, been approved by both Houses and been in place for the election in 2020. However, somebody in government took a decision to bring it forward by a year, and I suspect that decision was made purely for party political advantage. If that is the case, it is absolutely disgraceful.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

Obviously, that was before my time. The reason why the date cannot be changed now is that doing so would involve primary legislation. If such legislation was brought in to change the whole system, it would mean that we would definitely not get the boundaries reviews done in time for 2018.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I do not know whether that would have to be done through primary legislation, but I guarantee the Minister—I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, would do so as well—that the Government would get the full co-operation of both opposition parties and would get it through in a day or two. That would be absolutely no problem whatever. They could get it through next week if they needed to do so. I would provide complete co-operation on that, so there would be no problem about delaying things.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The problem is that the boundary review has already commenced and the Boundary Commission is expected to report later this year, so that would all go down the drain. There would definitely have to be primary legislation, and there is quite a lot going on at the moment, so would there be time for it? We would need to get it through so that we could do the boundary reviews by 2018, ready for the general election in 2020, so there really is not the time. The review has already started—I ought to move on, otherwise we will move round and round in circles—but that is the reason.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, wanted to know how the pilots were chosen. They have been chosen through the EROs, who came forward with ideas and proposals and expressed the wish to participate. He also talked about the Law Commission. The Government are currently considering the commission’s recent interim report on electoral law. This comprehensive and wide-ranging report makes a number of recommendations, including in relation to electoral registration, and it is important that the Government give the report due consideration before making a formal response. I hope he will understand that I cannot pre-empt the Government’s response at this stage. I look forward to continuing the work to improve electoral registration.

The noble Lord asked why the Government do not change the registration on which the boundary review is concluded. I think I have already covered that. As I said, it would need primary legislation, which is not possible at this time. The noble Lord also mentioned the extent of application. I think he was talking about England, Wales and Scotland, and how that worked. The legal jurisdiction is England and Wales, and that is its extent. The order applies only to England because the authorities concerned are all in England.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, talked about looking at postal databases to boost registration levels. The use of data to improve electoral registration is an important tool, and indeed Birmingham and South Lakeland will look to harness the information from multiple local data sources to help target their activity at households. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, mentioned, there is indeed a terrible problem with take-up from certain representations in the country, particularly BMEs. We are looking at that, and it really has to be sorted out. It is a problem that seems to keep going on and on. The Cabinet Office is putting this at the top of its list.

Students are a difficult problem as they tend to move house every year. Part of the problem is that the actual academic year starts in September and October but the registration is done in the December the year before. Again, that is being looked into. We are hoping that civil organisations such as Bite The Ballot are having some impact in getting students to register. It was interesting that it seems that a lot of students registered to vote in the EU referendum but did not actually vote when the day came. We are looking into why that was the case. It cannot be that they all slept in from 7 am until 10 pm.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I take the noble Lord’s point. Interestingly, all chancellors at universities were written to at the start of the referendum to say, “Please encourage students to register”. At that time the students would have been able to get a postal vote, but I certainly take the noble Lord’s point. I have probably covered all the questions. Is there anything I have left out?

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

The Minister has covered the points and we are very grateful for that. However, I think generally that the Government have to do more in this area. I am sure that they wrote letters to the vice-chancellors, which is great, but this should be included as part of the normal work of the university; they should have to get people to register to vote. With all the thousands of young people turning up at universities every year, part of their induction should be getting them to register to vote. Registration is often seen as going on in the corner over there with the door shut, and few other people get involved. It must be much more of a responsibility when public servants in a variety of roles meet members of the public. That is what we need to do to make it work.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I agree with the noble Lord. Of course students can register at home as well. However, we are very fortunate today to have a Minister for higher education here, so I am sure she is taking note of everything that everyone has said and will go back and make sure that we concentrate on this one. It is a very important point and the Cabinet Office is well aware of it. We need to make sure that we do more.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Also, I thank the Minister for saying that she was in awe of all the experts sitting around the Room. I hope that one day we might be listened to.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I always listen to the noble Lord. I thank everyone who has taken part and I commend the regulations to the Committee.