Electoral Registration

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Allen]

One case has been proven and taken forward. I want to give a couple of other statistics, and, sadly, there are a lot more zeros in them. Some 7.5 million people were not registered to vote at the last election. That works out at about 10,000 people in each of our constituencies. In fact, in deprived areas, such as my constituency, I am damned sure that it will be more than that—so more than 10,000 of my electorate are not even registered to vote, let alone not taking up the right to vote. Of those who did register at the last election, 16.5 million people decided not to bother to vote. If we add the non-registered to the ones who did not bother to vote, it comes to more than the number of those who voted Conservative and Labour combined.

This is a scandal. I am not blaming the Government for this; I am just saying that we as a Parliament need to take this in hand. We as a Parliament need to get people to register. We need to encourage people to vote not just because the techniques are right, but because they feel engaged in their system and believe that decisions are made not just at the Whitehall level, and because they feel they own their democracy and own decision making, particularly in own locality.

The point about EVEL—English votes for English laws—has been thrown into the debate again, but that is a procedural technicality for this House, rather than a question of how we devolve power, as they do in virtually every other western democracy, to people at the grass roots, to seize the opportunity to develop their own ways in their own areas.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

rose—

[Mr Allen]

I give way to my distinguished colleague from the Select Committee.

[Mark Durkan]

On the subject of English votes for English laws, does the hon. Gentleman recognise that if the Government continue with the current Act—the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011—the seat distribution to the boundary commissions in the next Parliament will be on the basis of reduced registration in England, so there could be fewer English seats in this House and more Scottish and Northern Ireland seats?

[Mr Allen]

Whenever a colleague in this House hears someone talking about EVEL and English votes they should be reminded that, unlike most democracies, we decide the size of our constituencies not on the number of people in them but on the number of people who are registered, and, as I have said, even at the last election 7.5 million were not registered. What a nonsense of a system that is!

I am going to give one last statistic, which is a slightly happier one. Some say, “People out there aren’t interested in this stuff”, but a world-record number of people replied to a Select Committee consultation on voter engagement. People out there are desperate; they are hungry for engagement. That is why there are so many organisations around. I have a list of a few of them here: Bite the Ballot, Unlock Democracy, the Hansard Society, the British Youth Council, Sky’s “Stand Up Be Counted” campaign, Catch 22, the National Union of Students, Involver, UpRising. They all wanted to grab that chance of saying to us that we have got to do better.

It is not good enough. Sixteen thousand people responded to our report, and the follow-up report, having listened to those 16,000, will be published tomorrow. There will be a debate in this House starting at 1.30 pm for those Members who are not able to speak in today’s debate.

We must do something about this. If people read the report tomorrow, they will see lots of ways forward on an all-party basis to involve our people in our own democracy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that one reason the registration effort in schools has been so successful is precisely that the electoral ID card is a strong incentive. It is not necessarily that pupils are overwhelmingly committed to voting for our party!

[Jim Shannon]

I would not necessarily go with that opinion, because when the pupils congregate for the cards and we help them to go and get them, I think we will gain from that. I am ever the optimist, as you know, Mr Speaker, and I am sometimes referred to as a “glass half full” person. I am conscious of the time, so I will continue.

It is important to address fraud. There have been examples in west Belfast in the past where up to half a dozen people were living in blocked up houses. I do not know how they got in there. If one had four legs, it was easy to get in, but not so easy for those with two legs. That is all I can say. It is acknowledged that we are likely to have a higher volume of voters in the general election—the contest to watch—so for that reason we need accessibility along with accurate data.

In 2012, Northern Ireland had an accuracy of 78% in its electoral registers. That clearly showed what we could do. The electorate of Northern Ireland grew by 9.8% between 2007 and 2012, in comparison with only 2.8% for United Kingdom and the rest of the mainland. Big steps were taken; we moved forward very quickly.

It is now a given that we must talk about technology in all strategies for engaging with and reaching the public. The online system is one thing we have introduced and it has been successful, although I think we could do more with it. Over 90% of responders gave positive feedback, so there have been issues that we have been able to deal with.

The system of voter registration in Northern Ireland for those at further education colleges has been good. There needs to be leafleting and marketing in our universities and colleges and our local businesses, and at grass-roots campaigning levels. Visuals and sign-up drives are also very important.

I urge Ministers to bear it in mind that, in the light of the upcoming elections and the fact that the nation’s eyes will be on how we run the votes, we should be ready for scrutiny and accountability.