Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am grateful for the opportunity to explain. I was surprised that when the noble Lord, Lord Bach, sat down the noble Lord, Lord Wills, did not stand up, hence why I intervened at this point. He will, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said. The point that I have tried to make is that the electoral quota, which is one of the key building blocks of the constituency boundaries, is determined by reference to a relevant date.

In terms of this Bill and the four Boundary Commission reviews for 1 October 2013, the relevant date for the electoral register is 1 December 2010—last month. The point I am trying to make with reference to England is that the relevant date for determining the boundaries is the year 2000. The general election in May last year was fought on boundaries on which, if we do not have a further boundary review before 2015, the general election of 2015 will be fought. The data go back to the year 2000. Therefore we will have constituency boundaries that are based very much on outdated data. The point I am trying to make is twofold. First, that in no way serves those who are not included in the register but are eligible. Secondly, under our proposals and what we intend to do to improve voter registration, voters will be on the register for December 2015, which will be the relevant date for the report to be produced in October 2018 for the general election of 2020.

There are two uses of the electoral register. There is the use of the relevant date, to which the Boundary Commission must have regard in determining the size of constituencies and constituency boundaries; and there is the continuing importance of the electoral register to determine who is eligible to vote at a particular election. That is a very important issue, and work continues to try and ensure that those who are eligible are on that register.

[Lord Maxton]

The Minister and I have had a dialogue about the use of data from various sources in drawing up the register. Is the Boundary Commission bound entirely, in drawing up these figures, to the printed and published register of voters, or is it entitled to use other forms of data in order to ensure that the maximum number of people are included in a constituency?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

In terms of this Bill and the four Boundary Commissions’ reports, which are required by October 2013, the relevant date is 1 December 2010. That is fixed.

There is the separate issue of trying to get the electoral roll as complete as possible through a number of initiatives such as the rolling register and data matching, which the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, and I have discussed. That will not be used for determining the electoral quotas for constituencies until the next boundary review, but it will be relevant for determining who is eligible to vote at any election—be it a European election, by-elections, local elections, Scottish parliamentary elections, Welsh National Assembly elections, Northern Ireland Assembly elections, and indeed the general election of 2015. That is why it is so imperative that we give an impetus to get people on the roll. In terms of their being eligible to vote, that effort ought to be made.

I do not want to mislead the House in any way. If those people came on the roll now, or during a drive that brought them on to the roll in the next 12 months, that, by definition, would not affect the number of people on the electoral roll on 1 December 2010. Hopefully, by sustaining that, these people would be on the electoral roll on 1 December 2015, and therefore would be part of the calculation for the quota and the constituencies, which would be the subject of the ensuing boundary review.

The other point, which goes along with that, is that people might not be taken into account if they come on to the register now for the 2015 election, but many people have come on to the electoral register since 2000 in England who likewise would not be taken into account for 2015, if the amendment that is being moved by the noble Lord’s noble friend were to be carried. An update of 10 years is some considerable improvement.