Electoral Registration

Lord Maxton Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the evidence that a large number of EROs are not doing their job is not there. Five of the six EROs who were rated last year as not having achieved their performance standards were in Devon and Somerset, rather to my surprise, and not in Labour-held areas—in Devon and Somerset, it tends to be either Liberal Democrat or Conservative seats. The question of training is one that we are well aware of. The Electoral Commission works with the Association of Electoral Administrators and others to ensure that EROs are well trained and do their job as well as they can.

[Lord Maxton (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the best way of ensuring that we have full registration is a compulsory ID card with a biological identifier, which would then allow all people to be registered from the word go and to then vote electronically as well with that card? That would ensure the fullest participation in registration and in the election.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I agree with the noble Lord that there are some very large questions about how much data the Government already have about people who are or are not registered and how much they are allowed by current law to pull those data together. I very much hope that, in the new Parliament, we shall debate actively what changes in the law we need for that. Moves towards compulsory registration and the sort of unique individual identifier that he suggests—a lighter form of ID card—may be coming, but that is something that we all need to discuss very carefully.