Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

4. What steps he is taking to improve the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

We are bringing forward our Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, which has its Second Reading in the House tomorrow, to improve the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register.

[Amber Rudd]

How does my hon. Friend expect individual voter registration to help with efforts to get more disabled people and young people registered to vote?

[Mr Harper]

It is certainly true that there has been a lot of focus on the possible risks to this approach. When we debate Second Reading tomorrow, I hope that colleagues will see that we have taken a lot of steps to deal with that. However, there are also a number of opportunities, one of which is through the online registration system that we are introducing. We hope that disabled people, particularly those with visual impairments, will find it more convenient and easier to register. We may therefore find that, among certain groups, we have a better chance of getting people registered to vote and able to exercise their democratic rights.

[Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)]

Will the Minister publish an ongoing league table showing the number and percentage of people on the electoral register?

[Mr Harper]

Information about people on the electoral register is, I understand, already published by the Office for National Statistics. It is difficult to publish a league table showing the percentage of eligible voters, because no clear information is available about the number of eligible people in each parliamentary constituency. However, information on the number of people registered to vote in each area is regularly published by the Office for National Statistics.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

Can my hon. Friend assure me that all appropriate steps will be taken to reduce the risk of people falling off the register, and that registration officers will have all the tools available to them to ensure that registration is maximised in their local areas?

[Mr Harper]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. We have made a number of changes to the Bill to reflect the recommendations of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, whose Chairman, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), is in his place today. When colleagues on both sides of the House study the changes, they will see that we have taken all the steps to maximise the accuracy of the register and to ensure that no one eligible to vote falls off it in the transition.

[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

If the Government wish, as they say, to have a complete and accurate electoral register, why are they pressing ahead with their individual electoral registration legislation before the results of the next round of data matching are known? Can it be because they are thinking about the parliamentary boundary review of December 2015?

[Mr Harper]

That is not the case. The hon. Gentleman knows that, based on the data-matching pilots we have already run, we think that there is good evidence that we will be able to confirm two thirds of voters who are already on the electoral register and move them over to the new one, assured that they are real people registered at those addresses. We will run more pilots later this year, subject to parliamentary approval of the orders, to test that proposition further and see whether there are any other lessons to learn. However, we are confident from the work that we have done so far that the process is robust.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

6. What plans he has to bring forward proposals on the regulation of the lobbying industry.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

9. When he plans to implement the commitment in the coalition agreement to introduce a statutory register of lobbyists.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

The hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) will know that we have just carried out a consultation on our statutory register of lobbyists, which closed on 20 April, and we are now studying the responses. We will publish our response to that consultation before the summer recess, and we will publish a White Paper and draft legislation later this Session.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the Minister for that helpful answer. Abuse of lobbying is nothing new, but in recent years we have had to deal with the issue of helpful calls to News International. We have seen the Conservative co-treasurer offering dinner dates with the Prime Minister, Bell Pottinger offering influence at No. 10, and Adam Werritty and so on. So may I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to get on with this register, because people were disappointed not to see it in the Queen’s Speech and this situation is undermining our democracy?

[Mr Harper]

I would add to that list of examples, because people are also concerned when trade unions write amendments for the Labour party. I will not take any lectures from the Labour party on dealing with this issue at speed, because it had 13 years to tackle the issue and made no progress at all. It is important that we get this right, so that we do not have to keep returning to it. We have published a consultation, I have set out the steps we are going to take to publish a White Paper and a draft Bill, and I have already made a commitment, when giving evidence last week to a Select Committee, that we will deal with this issue, as we have committed to do, this Parliament.

[Mr Crausby]

The Prime Minister has already been proved right when he said that lobbying would be the “next big scandal” to happen, so why this delay? Does the Minister not agree that any failure to bring forward meaningful legislation will justifiably feed the public mistrust of politicians? Is it not time that we completely cleaned up this place?

[Mr Harper]

I am very happy to agree with the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question; the Prime Minister is, indeed, always right. On the second part of the question, the hon. Gentleman did not listen to my previous answer. I am not going to take any lectures from the Labour party, which did nothing on this subject. It is important to get this right. We have published the consultation document. He will know, from listening to what people have said publicly, that there are a range of views on how we deal with this. We are going to look at those consultation responses, publish our proposals and put them up for pre-legislative scrutiny, so that people can look at them, and we will legislate and deal with this matter in this Parliament, as we have committed to do.

[Stephen Timms]

The Minister still has not explained to us why the Government are dragging their feet. It was widely expected that this Bill would be in the Queen’s Speech and we have been told that the draft legislation is going to be available before long, so why not just get on with it and bring the legislation forward?

[Mr Harper]

Again, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that his party did nothing about this when in government. We will take one lesson from his Government: rushing forward with ill-considered legislation that then is not brought into force or which goes wrong when it is introduced and then has to be revisited is not a good way of legislating. We have published a number of Bills in draft so far, in the first Session of this Parliament, including the one dealing with electoral registration. That is a good way of legislating and it is generally supported across this House. It is better to get it right and do it well, rather than rush it and make a bodge of it.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

What is my hon. Friend doing to regulate that most destructive form of lobbying—that which comes from Liberal Democrat Back Benchers and is designed to undermine the economic recovery by arguing against the regionalisation of public sector pay and against the Beecroft report?

[Mr Harper]

Speaking for myself, I enjoy being lobbied by Back Benchers of all descriptions, be they Members from the Government parties or Opposition Members. I am very happy to listen to views. The Government will then move forward with their proposals on lobbying, based on the evidence and on the responses to our consultation.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

The Minister will know that there is considerable opposition on both sides of the Houses to any regulation on lobbying, and we all know why, certainly after 13 years of the Labour Government. However, will he confirm that the key is transparency? If the public know which politicians are meeting whom, it will be much harder for anything dishonourable to happen. I hope that that will be a key part of any announcement.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman is right to focus on transparency. It is one reason why Ministers in this Government are much more transparent about those whom we meet than Ministers in previous Governments were—[Interruption.] It is no good the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) laughing; this Government are much more transparent about the meetings that Ministers have. Transparency is the key; that is where we have identified the problem and this is what we are going to solve with our proposals. As I said, it is important to get it right and get the job done, and that is exactly what we are going to do.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

8. What his policy is on upholding the principle of accountability in a reformed House of Lords.