Electoral Registration

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Tyler]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to identify areas with underperforming electoral registration officers, and to issue directions to ensure the maximum possible number of eligible electors are registered.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the performance of electoral registration officers is monitored and reported on by the independent Electoral Commission. The commission’s most recent assessment, in June 2014, showed that the large majority of EROs are performing well against the performance standards set. Where problems are found, the Cabinet Office and the Electoral Commission work closely with the EROs to ensure that they are implementing their public engagement and implementation plans for the transition to individual electoral registration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, did my noble friend see that, yesterday, the chair of the Electoral Commission reported to the Select Committee in the other place that 2 million applications to register have been received since 1 December? The position is improving. But I hope he agrees that the situation is very mixed locally. Given those circumstances, are the Government looking at the proposal from the Electoral Commission that it should be in a better position to monitor and instruct electoral registration officers locally? The commission recommended:

“Should any ERO decide not to undertake such activity, the Commission will make a recommendation to the Secretary of State to issue a direction to require them to do so”.

Is it not time for the Government to respond to that recommendation? Indeed, is it not time to name and shame those local authorities and those EROs who are simply not doing their job?

[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.