Parliamentary Boundary Commission: Electoral Administration

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, the longest debates in which I have taken part in the House since I have been a Member were over what was then called the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. I do not intend this afternoon to go over again all the arguments made during those very lengthy debates. However, I recognise that in this short debate we are dealing with some very serious issues. Some of the processes used by the Boundary Commissions are based on the electoral register. It is that issue of the work of Boundary Commissions that I wish to address. Many issues about the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register will be relevant to future parliamentary boundary reviews. This is an opportune time to concentrate on these issues, in advance of our serious consideration of the legislation to implement individual electoral registration.

Looking back to those debates 18 months ago, it is significant that at the time, we were assured by Ministers that the electoral register was estimated to be about 92% complete. However, the recent research referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain—research conducted by the Electoral Commission and paid for by the Cabinet Office—suggests that it may only be 85% complete. That is an average figure, suggesting that there may be many parts of the country where the electoral register is significantly less than 85% complete.

We recently debated in Grand Committee another round of orders for data-matching pilots. During that debate, my noble friend Lord Wallace, who I am pleased to see in his place today, assured us that the aim of the implementation of individual electoral registration was at least as much the completeness of the electoral register as its accuracy. The success of those data-matching pilots will be crucial to the successful implementation of individual electoral registration, on which boundary reviews will be based in future. There has been successful progress on the implementation of individual electoral registration since the publication of the original White Paper.

In particular, it is now accepted that we must retain the principle that it is a legal requirement to comply with the electoral registration process. The legal requirement for the household registration form will be retained and compliance will remain, as now, subject to a fine of up to £1,000. In the debate on 12 January initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, I outlined at col. 238 the wide variety of wording on existing electoral registration forms, but what they all had in common was wording about returning the form being a legal requirement. What was inconsistent in those forms and must, I believe, be made common to all forms in future is a statement that not complying with the process could make you liable to a fine of up to £1,000. That statement must be very clear on all such forms in future. Can the Minister confirm, during this debate if possible, that when the household registration forms are standardised in future and under the direction of the Electoral Commission, they will all clearly state that returning them is a legal requirement and that not complying with the process is subject to a fine of up to £1,000?

We simply cannot allow different local authorities to adopt a pick and mix approach to the fundamentals of electoral registration processes, as these provide the database for our national elections, not only for electing Members of the House of Commons—and, perhaps one day, Members of your Lordships’ House—but for the European Parliament elections, police and crime commissioner elections, the Scottish Parliament elections, the London Assembly elections, the Welsh Assembly elections, et cetera. The process is not just for elections to that particular council, so uniformly high standards must be applied to the process in each local authority area. We need above all to avoid the situation in the United States, where those who are deliberately campaigning to reduce the level of electoral registration are able to adopt different measures in different states, aimed at denying certain groups the opportunity to vote in order to manipulate the outcome unfairly. I would call that cheating in the electoral process.

The principle of consistent best practice must also apply to the new form for individual registration. There will in future be a civil penalty applicable for those who do not return the individual forms to complete the registration process, but the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee in the House of Commons was not right to suggest that this fixed penalty should be £500. For a fixed penalty that would apply irrespective of whether failure to respond is simply a matter of forgetfulness or one of deliberately trying to avoid being registered to vote, £500 is in my opinion too high a fixed penalty. Registering to vote, and in the same process registering for jury service, is a significant civic duty and I am glad that it will remain a legal obligation. However, the penalty should be more in line with the level of fixed penalties for parking offences. I know how much it annoys me when I occasionally get a parking ticket.

Repeated failures to register should also be subject to repeat penalties. It would not be right if the fixed penalty could be used as a sort of one-off fee to avoid registration. I hope that anyone subject to the fixed penalty would subsequently register and thereby avoid further penalties. Perhaps the Minister can explain how it is envisaged that this process will work. If someone pays a fixed penalty and still fails to register, I assume that they would be subject to further penalties, just as a car parked illegally may acquire further parking tickets. However, would someone be able to avoid further penalties or even receive a discount on the penalty if they subsequently registered?

We will soon be considering the details of electoral registration in this House. In our consideration, we must look carefully not only at how the process will improve the register’s accuracy but at the fundamental issue of completeness, which is so relevant to the Boundary Commission processes. In Northern Ireland, the introduction of individual electoral registration has, by and large, been deemed a success. It has required national insurance numbers but I remain to be convinced that a signature should not be acceptable if national insurance numbers cannot be found. There are of course a small number of eligible voters to whom national insurance numbers have not been issued, as well as the difficulty some people have in finding their national insurance number. I hope, therefore, that the Minister, in consideration with his colleagues, might consider the use of signatures as an alternative to national insurance numbers, as we are bound to return to this issue. We should all want to ensure that everyone entitled to be on the electoral register is included on it, while respecting the fact that only those people entitled to be on that register should be on it.

I have no doubt that, during this debate, other noble Lords will want to talk about particular recommendations of the Boundary Commissions, about the number of MPs in the context of whether or not your Lordships’ House is reformed, and about how the Boundary Commissions are conducting their work. However, on the general issue I understand the long-standing case—originally put forward by the Chartists—that MPs should represent constituencies of roughly equal size. I hope that noble Lords will, by and large, respect that, as an important principle, MPs should have roughly the same number of electors.

We need to see the final recommendations of the commissions before we can say with certainty that the margin of variation allowed is too small for the creation of sensible constituencies, but the evidence of the initial proposals is that that may well be the case. We do not yet know exactly what the final boundary shapes will be, but we can tell, from some psephological analysis, that Conservative hopes and Labour fears about the current review may have been greatly exaggerated. Some estimates suggest that the advantage to the Conservatives may be to the tune of only 10 or so seats, if they receive the same level of support as in 2010. It seems that, for the Conservatives, the boundary changes could deliver a relatively small haul for a big upheaval in the nature of our constituencies.

Those who are concerned about the number of MPs—in particular the balance between the number of Ministers and Back-Benchers—will remember that during those debates 18 months ago, we agreed, following an amendment, that there must be a review of the number of MPs after the next general election. That amendment, which became Section 14 of the Act, provides for a review of the reduction in the number of constituencies. That review must take place before November 2015. It will be an important review and all these issues, neglected in many previous parliamentary Sessions, should be kept under constant review.