Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Mark Harper Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Angela Smith]

There has been very little by way of explanation from the Minister in his response to the amendments that would give us any confidence in the potential alternatives to the annual canvass that have been repeatedly mentioned from the Government Benches. We have had references to alternatives that may be developed in the future, which may at some point in the future give the House the confidence to agree to a ministerial proposal to abolish the annual canvass. It would have helped the Committee in its deliberations if the Minister had outlined clearly what some of those alternatives might be.

As I indicated in my initial comments on the amendments, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), suggested previously in oral evidence that modified versions of the annual canvass could be available in the future. It would have helped the Committee if we had had more detail from the Minister about what some of those alternatives might be. It is clear that Ministers are thinking through some of these proposals. Nothing in what we have heard today gives us the confidence to believe that the part of clause 6 that gives the Minister the right to abolish the annual canvass is anything other than a threat to the democratic process in this country.

The Committee is being asked to agree something completely in the dark. In his response, the Minister indicated that in early 2014 there would be a full annual canvass, and I thank him for that. He also made it clear that it would be carried out in time for the European elections, which take place in June that year, as we understand it. The local elections in 2014 are likely to take place at the same time. He then indicated that the new individual registration process would commence shortly afterwards.

May I take it that the Electoral Commission’s recommendation is that the commencement date for the new IR process should be 1 July 2014? We have had no response to that, but from what the Minister said, there is clearly a plan to go ahead with implementation of IR in the late summer of 2014. However, no information has been laid before the Committee today and no commitment has been given that the data-matching pilots which are part of the legislation will be completed and evaluated by the Electoral Commission before commencement of the new provisions.

It is reckless to commit to a new system of electoral registration and to commit to commencement in 2014 when we have no certainty that the pilot schemes designed to test whether the new processes work will have been completed. It is the Opposition’s view that the new scheme for individual registration should be introduced only when the Electoral Commission is satisfied that it will guarantee a high level of completeness and accuracy. Nothing that we heard today gives us confidence that that will be the case.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) made good contributions in which they described in detail the complexity of people’s lives and the impact that an annual canvass may have in reducing levels of completeness precisely because of those complexities. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham referred in particular to the problem of registering students.

Last week we had a debate about student registration. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) pointed out that there are 31,800 students living in his constituency alone. Without the annual canvass it is entirely possible, for all the reasons outlined in the debate, that registration in a constituency such as Sheffield Central could be substantially reduced. Given that the majority in Sheffield Central stands at only 165, it is obvious that before we make any radical changes to our electoral registration processes we should ensure that we have guarantees that any new system works properly, is based on sound evidence and is guaranteed and given the stamp of approval by the Electoral Commission.

We have heard a lot today about how the new system will work, but we have not heard the detail. We have had superficial reassurances that it will work, but we have heard nothing of the detail. We have had no significant reassurance on whether new systems will eventually be so robust that we will be able to abolish an annual canvass.

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

I wanted to check this information before I responded to the hon. Lady, but the assessment of the data-matching pilots to test the confirmation process by the Government and the Electoral Commission will be done by June 2013, well in time for us to have a clear picture before we commence the IER process.

[Angela Smith]

I thank the Minister for that, but can he confirm that all the data-matching pilots and necessary testing will be complete before the Government move ahead with the new scheme?

[Mr Harper]

The only one that we have to have tested before we move ahead is that to do with confirmation. The pilots that we will be doing, subject to the approval of Parliament, to see whether some of the data matching can help us to identify people not on the register concern things that we would want to know if we proposed to get rid of the canvass. As we do not propose to do that, we do not need to have that information before we move ahead with IER. We will know the results of the confirmation testing pilots by June 2013.

[Angela Smith]

The key point is that the new register, and the one used for the boundary review in 2015, will not be as complete as it should be, because those people carried over for the general election will not be carried over for December 2015. I therefore do not take a great deal of reassurance from that.

We have had a lengthy debate. The Opposition will not seek to press the amendment to a vote. We believe that the House of Lords will engage in a lengthy and detailed debate on the issues that we have raised today, and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 7 and 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 9

Piloting registration provision

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ruane]

You have been very lenient, Mr Weir, and have let me rabbit on for a few minutes.

I give the Government credit for their recognition of representations from both sides of the House, civic society, the police, the Electoral Reform Society, Unlock Democracy, the courts and so on. They have listened, but this was all unnecessary. If they had stuck to Labour’s 2015 timetable, we would not have been discussing the matter today and would perhaps have been discussing the economy, growth or other such issues.

[Mr Harper]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir.

I should acknowledge the very charitable comments—for him—made by the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane). It was pleasant to have such a polite outburst, compared with some of his previous ones. I acknowledge straight away that he is right that we all have a responsibility to help get these matters right. As Members of Parliament, we are in a very powerful position when it comes to talking to our electoral registration officers, asking what they are doing and checking that they are doing everything that is necessary. The same applies to senior councillors. I often hear anecdotal evidence that EROs say that they have trouble getting the resources to do the job properly, but the EROs and returning officers are often the more senior officers in the council. Councillors are very interested in ensuring that the electoral register is done properly and we as Members of Parliament have an opportunity, which the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we should take, to ask EROs what they are doing. When the Bill becomes law, as I hope that it will, it will be incumbent on us all to talk to our EROs, to check that they are doing all the work and to ask how they are progressing in implementing the provisions.

I thank the hon. Members for Vale of Clwyd and for North Durham (Mr Jones) for what they said about the Select Committee chaired by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) and the excellent work it did in pre-legislative scrutiny. I also thank the hon. Member for North Durham for what he said about our response to that scrutiny. There is not much point in its being done only for us to ignore all of it, and we made a number of significant changes before we introduced the Bill. I should also praise the hon. Gentleman for mentioning accuracy as well as completeness. They are of equal importance and the Government have focused on both.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

May I make a suggestion concerning the registration form? There should be a simple tick-box for people to register for a postal vote. In some cases, they have to register to vote, and on a different form register for a postal vote. A tick-box on the registration form would be much easier.

[Mr Harper]

Let me conclude my previous thought and I will come to that.

Some local authorities already use the register for the other purposes for which it can be used—for example, to run credit checks, or when people want credit for a mobile phone—as a positive method of encouraging people to be registered. This is where is it important to give EROs the power to consider their local circumstances. Depending on the area, depending how many people move, how often and the kinds of people, there are different messages that may work with different groups of people. The ERO should have the opportunity to do that. The Electoral Commission will be doing some work with us on this. When the commission suggests that certain things should be on the form and should be mandated, we have the powers to do that.

On postal votes and the point made by the hon. Member for North Durham, a separate form must be completed. In order to prevent fraud, people have to provide identifiers, such as date of birth and a signature for the electoral registration officer—[Interruption] The hon. Member for North Durham says, “On one form.” If we are moving towards allowing people to register electronically, a postal voter would still have to provide a hard copy signature, so the process cannot be made completely seamless. However, the hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Some local authorities may want to collect all the information, including date of birth, at one time. I will take his suggestion and see whether there is anything in our regulations which would prevent that. It may be one of the things that we can ask the Electoral Commission and some of our stakeholders to investigate to see whether that would be helpful for voters.

[Mr Jones]

I am grateful for the Minister’s response. I accept that a signature and date of birth are needed, but surely those could be provided on one form. That would save council administration and encourage people who want to apply for a postal vote to do so more easily.

[Mr Harper]

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion, and, as I said, I will take it away and look at it. We will make sure that there is nothing that prevents such a suggestion, and we will also investigate it with our stakeholders, including the commission, administrators and a lot of the groups, particularly focusing on those who might find a postal vote helpful. We can perhaps trial some of that and see whether it is effective. That is a helpful suggestion from the hon. Gentleman.

Amendment 17 links Government Departments with responsibility for welfare payments, pensions, driving licences, revenue collection and national insurance with information about the electoral register. I agree with that up to a point and we will already be doing some of that. However, it would not be helpful to mandate that, given that most voters are already on the electoral register and quite a lot of people do not move about all the time. We do not want to insist on making every transaction with each of those Departments more complex. However, I agree with the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge about signposting and making that kind of linkage more effective.

The hon. Member for North Durham mentioned driving licences, and we are working with the Department for Transport on that. He also mentioned Directgov, and the Government Digital Service, which is working with us on developing the online registration tool, is also responsible for Directgov, so they will work seamlessly together. Where Departments deal with people who move about or new voters, we are considering signposting and giving people prompts. If we did that electronically and people needed only to tick a box, potentially they could be redirected straight to the site where they could register online. For some voters, that would be an effective way of driving up registration.

[Mr Jones]

Directgov would be a good system, because the identifier is down to the individual, and it allows one to do a whole range of things. To be able to register to vote through it, accepting that a form may be required to obtain a signature later, would be much easier for a lot of people, especially when they move house. A lot can be done through Directgov in one place, which is always useful.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman makes some good points. Once we have an online method of registering in the first instance, that will be very effective. It already works very well in a number of local authorities for re-registering each year. I have just received my form in my constituency of the Forest Dean and I was able to re-register in a matter of minutes on my BlackBerry, putting in the code and ticking the opt-out box for the edited register. That worked very smoothly and a confirmation e-mail arrived. Many local authorities already do that. What they cannot do, because they are not empowered to do so, is effect new registrations in that way. Once we can do that, many people will move to that, either doing it themselves, or, if they need assistance, through an assisted digital method. It is important that people have that assistance and I think that is where people will start going.

The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge, like Members beforehand, raised concerns about younger voters, particularly attainers—16 and 17-year-olds who get registered. I have been to Northern Ireland and seen how they register young people directly in schools. The chief electoral officer’s staff do a presentation, focusing on the civic side and the need to register to have a vote and to have one’s say, but they are not above looking at some of the other reasons that young people might want to be registered to vote, such as credit. Northern Ireland has a voter ID card and electoral staff run also through some of its practical uses, such as proof of age. Interestingly, as I have said in debates before, now that younger voters are engaged with directly, a higher percentage of them are registered to vote than in Great Britain, where we rely on mum and dad to do that.

So, I am a bit more hopeful. Having spoken to young people when I visit schools, as I am sure have many Members, I think that such direct engagement is a way to get them not just to register to vote but to use their vote. One of the depressing points is that young people, even when registered, are the least likely to cast their vote. In a sense, getting lots of people registered just to see them not vote is not very encouraging, so I think that we can all do a better job on that. However, as I said, I am more hopeful about younger voters engaging directly. There is some evidence that if we can engage with voters directly, rather than relying on one person in the household, we might all be pleasantly surprised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wayne David]

That is right. A balance has to be struck. We had hoped to debate whether the Government had struck that balance, but unfortunately we cannot come to that decision. Perhaps before the end of the debate the Minister will tell us what level of fine the Government have in mind.

[Mr Harper]

I want to say one or two words about the draft secondary legislation. I do not apologise for when I laid it in the Library, because we are not debating it; we are debating the Bill. I put it in the Library so that Members could see it. I know I said this last week, but I will repeat it, because the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) needs to think it through: I will take no lectures from him about secondary legislation. Two similar Bills delegating significant powers to Ministers on electoral matters were introduced in the previous Parliament. I shall tell the House when the previous Government published the secondary legislation. It never published any in draft during the parliamentary passage of the Bill. The first any Members saw of any secondary legislation was after royal assent. I have published the draft secondary legislation while the Bill is still before this House, let alone the other one, and I have said that the rest of the secondary legislation will be published by the autumn, before the Bill has finished its passage through the other place. It might not be perfect and we might not be paragons of virtue, but we are doing an awful lot better than the previous Government. He ought to think about that before makes that point again.

[Chris Ruane]

Does the Minister accept that the difference between the two previous Bills, which, I admit, were certainly not perfect, and this Bill is that the former were not highly politicised? The 2009 legislation had cross-party support, but this Bill is highly contentious. We believe it to be highly politicised and the Conservative party’s ticket to winning the next election and the one afterwards. There is polarity there, which is why we need to see the fine print.

[Mr Harper]

I am not going to labour the point—

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Mike Weir)]

Order. Before the Minister gets too far into this, let me remind the Committee that we are not debating the secondary legislation at this point. Let us debate what is before the Committee. The Minister can reply if he wants to, but I hope he will shortly bring us back to the main subject.

[Mr Harper]

That is a good steer, Mr Weir. Let me make the point in passing that the 2009 Act to which the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) referred was not uncontroversial. We voted against it by way of a reasoned amendment because it did not include provisions on individual electoral registration. They were put in only when the Bill went to the other place, so I think we have done very well. Let me clarify what we have done. We have added to the secondary legislation and put in provisions setting out the steps the registration officer should take before insisting on a penalty and we have set out some information about the penalty, to which I shall return in a few moments.

Let me explain, as the hon. Member for Caerphilly mentioned it, that “agile methodology” is a way of developing information technology—the way it is done in the private sector—in order to avoid complicated and massive IT systems that cost a fortune, do not work and then have to be scrapped. We have learned much from how the previous Government operated; this is the way in which this Government will develop IT systems, and I think that they will be much more successful.

Picking up on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd), let me be clear from the beginning that we are talking about registration; we are absolutely not talking about imposing a penalty for not voting. Voting is voluntary and it will remain voluntary. While this Government are in office, there will be no proposals to change that. I am always disappointed when people do not vote, but they absolutely have the right not to, and it is our job as politicians to give them reasons for going out to vote or use their postal vote and to ensure that there is no obstacle to their doing so. If they do not vote, it will be because we have not given them sufficiently compelling reasons either to vote for us or against us, depending on their point of view. That remains the case.

It is worth setting out—it is a bit of a stand part debate, but it is relevant to the amendments—how we have arrived at this point. Members will know that it is not now and will not be in the future a specific offence not to register to vote in the first instance. The current position is that if people do not respond to the household form or, indeed, other inquiries that the electoral registration officer makes—this is the current way of getting on the electoral register—it is a criminal offence with a penalty of up to £1,000. We have no plans to change that; it will remain in place.

The question we faced with the invitation to register was whether to have a penalty. The hon. Member for Caerphilly is quite right that when the draft Bill was first published, it did not include a penalty. Several hon. Members have touched on the public policy reasons justifying a penalty. Some aspects of registration affect other people. First, the register provides the source of jurors, and it is important to have balanced juries made up of a proper cross-section of adult electors. Secondly, electoral registers can affect boundary changes—not just parliamentary boundary changes, but local ones as well, as highlighted by several hon. Members. That is why we decided it made sense to have a civil penalty, which was also in response to the Select Committee’s report and some of the evidence that was taken.

As for the amendments—the Select Committee’s amendment 33 and amendment 14 from the hon. Member for Caerphilly—regardless of the amounts specified, I do not believe it sensible to put the civil penalty directly in the Bill, as this would be better done through secondary legislation. I hesitate to correct the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Chairman of the Select Committee, but these matters are not at the diktat of the Minister. All the Bill’s powers are made by Ministers, but they all have to be approved by way of affirmative resolutions by both Houses. There is proper parliamentary control over the exercise of that Executive power.

I hope that both hon. Members will withdraw their amendments; as I said, it is not appropriate to put the figures directly on the face of the Bill rather than implement them through secondary legislation. As for how we get to the figure for the penalty, I am afraid that the hon. Member for Caerphilly is going to remain disappointed for today, as I do not propose to pluck a figure out of the air. The process we want to adopt is one that we have done all the way through—we are going to listen to people. We have explained how we will go about this. We think that the analogy with parking fines is sensible. The hon. Member for Caerphilly observed that there was a range of parking fines across the country, but the range is fairly narrow. A parking fine is not £500; it is about £40 at the lower end and £130 at the higher end.

There are some good arguments in favour of setting the fine at the higher level, for instance to reflect the importance of the matter and to ensure that it is a proper deterrent, but there are also arguments in favour of setting it at the lower level. Unlike the £1,000 fine issued by magistrates who can take into account the circumstances of voters—both the extent to which they believe them to be culpable and their financial resources—this will be a fixed penalty. It should also be borne in mind that although the criminal penalty involves a maximum fine of £1,000, the fines that are actually issued are usually much lower. During the 2011 canvass, the London borough of Hounslow successfully prosecuted 10 people for not providing the information required, but the average fine issued was £125. That was because magistrates were able to take various factors into account. This penalty will be fixed throughout the country, and when it is issued it will not be possible for the electoral registration officer to alter it.

We have listed a number of factors that should guide the arguments in favour of a higher or lower level, given broadly the same range as that which applies to parking fines, and we will do some targeted work with our stakeholders and consider their responses. I suspect that some will favour a reasonably high number for encouragement purposes, while others will be a little concerned about the potential impact.

I have listened carefully to the arguments that have been advanced today. I think that the hon. Member for Caerphilly’s proposal is at least in the ball park of the parking fine system, while the figure suggested by the hon. Member for Nottingham North on behalf of his Select Committee is rather on the high side. We will draw our conclusions, and Members will be able to see what we have come up with.

I should also say, in response to a point made by both the hon. Member for Caerphilly—who referred to the impact assessment—and the hon. Member for Nottingham North, that this is not the first course to which electoral registration officers should resort. We do not want them running around the country handing out fines like confetti; indeed, in an ideal world we would not want fines at all.

Those who receive parking fines can usually reduce them by paying promptly, but they cannot reduce them to zero. In this instance, everyone who incurs a civil penalty—and we hope that the number will be no more than the 100 a year or so who incur criminal penalties—will be able to reduce the amount to zero by registering to vote. If they register as a result of incurring the penalty, the electoral registration officer will be able to waive it. The purpose is to persuade people to register, not to issue fines. The Bill will prevent registration officers from keeping the money, so that they are not tempted, and so that people do not think that they are issuing the fines in order to use them as a revenue generation exercise, which would be just as bad.

We will specify—and have set out in draft regulations—what registration officers must do. They must issue the invitation, send reminders and send a door-to-door canvasser, and they must be satisfied that the individual has received the invitation and still resides at the address involved. Only when they have done all that can they tell people that they will issue a notice, and that if they do not register after that, a penalty will be incurred.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

The Minister touched on an important point earlier. He will know that some London boroughs, in particular, have given parking attendants an incentive to issue tickets by offering payment by results. Will he include in secondary legislation a methodology that would preclude such activities in areas where the level of registration is usually low in the first instance, so that there is no incentive to fleece the taxpayer?

[Mr Harper]

I am not sure whether my hon. Friend was present when I said this, but we have included in the Bill the important provision that any revenue from fines does not go to the ERO and is not kept by the local authority. It must go to the centre. The purpose of the fines is to encourage people to register to vote, not to generate revenue for local authorities. Therefore, the process of issuing a penalty will come with a cost to, and a burden on, the local authority. We do not want this to become a means of revenue generation for local authorities, as some people think is the case in respect of parking and speeding fines. I am confident our proposals strike the right balance.

[Chris Ruane]

Many constituencies with large numbers of unregistered voters cover some of the poorest areas of the country, where cuts in other areas will loom large. EROs will be under a lot of pressure. If they legitimately raise finance through fines, should they not be allowed to keep a proportion of that, to reflect the additional work they will have to do? Will every step be monitored? Further, will there be an increase in bureaucracy, and if so, how will it be paid for?

[Mr Harper]

I shall make two points in response to the hon. Gentleman’s questions. First, some of our stakeholders are concerned that many people who are not registered to vote may well be poorer people; they do not want people without much money being hit with fines and being financially penalised. We thought about this matter when drafting the legislation, and my view was that it was better to make sure there was not a financial incentive. Everyone who gave us feedback, including EROs, said they wanted a penalty. They do not want to issue any penalties, however; rather, they want to be able to write a scary notice on the form saying, “If you don’t do this, something will happen, so you can’t just ignore this form and put it in the bin.” That goes back to a point made by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams).

We will work with the Electoral Commission on how to set out the description of the penalty so that it has the desired effect. It will test that in the design of forms, through user testing. If we come up with forms that are effective in this regard, we will be able to make it mandatory that they are used, which is important because at present authorities do these things in a variety of ways.

[Chris Ruane]

On this question, may I refer the Minister to the example set by Denbighshire county council, which stated in the middle of its form for registration, “If you do not fill this form in, you will be fined £1,000”? The warning has to be prominent and at the centre of the page, so that the recipients of these forms clearly understand that they must fill them in.

[Mr Harper]

The Electoral Commission will consider such issues when addressing the design of the form, and I am sure the points the hon. Gentleman raises will be taken into account.

Having set out why I do not think the level of the fine should be stated in the Bill, and having drawn attention to the draft secondary legislation and the approach we plan to take in coming up with that figure—rather than just making it up, we will listen to what stakeholders have to say—I hope the amendments will be withdrawn so we can allow the clause as currently drafted to stand part of the Bill.

[Mr Allen]

First, may I name-check another member of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), for her attendance and contribution? She made an epic contribution, and she was extremely helpful to me when I was indisposed, in making sure the Committee carried out its scrutiny duties effectively. Secondly, may I give credit to the Government, as they have moved on this issue? At the outset, there was not to be any fine whatever, and it takes courage, and some cost, to listen, and the Government should be commended in this Chamber and outside it for having done so. There is more to do, of course, but we are now in a position from where we can move forward.

There were a couple of references in the debate to Robert Caro’s mammoth biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who, from a very difficult position, became the leading promoter of civil rights, including civil rights legislation. At the beginning of those enormous volumes, the scene is set by a black woman in the south seeking to get registered to vote. We need to remember, particularly in discussing registration and clause 5, that she was prohibited from participating in the democracy of the United States not by being prevented from voting, but because she could not even register in order then to participate in the voting process. That is why this clause is important, and why I hope the Minister will listen to the arguments that have been made tonight. In order to ensure that he listens even more carefully than he normally does, I will withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Schedule 5

Transitional provision to do with Part 1